DAVID LEAN DIRECTS NOEL COWARD (Blu-Ray) - #603

One was an accomplished film editor looking to move up the cinema ladder, the other a successful playwright ready to embrace motion pictures in full. David Lean, the man who would go on to make Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago, two of the biggest big-screen epics of all time, began his career on a relatively moderate scale by comparison, but teaming with a writer as popular as Noël Coward (A Design forLiving) was somewhat epic unto itself. The pair made four films between 1942 and 1945, showing increasing progress across the quartet and culminating in a genuine masterpiece of romantic cinema. Criterion finally collects all of these movies under one banner, David Lean Directs NoëlCoward, boasting new high-definition transfers and a healthy selection of bonus materials.

I reviewed the movies in the set separately for this blog, but you can read them compiled together, along with notes on the technical specs, over at DVD Talk.

DAVID LEAN DIRECTS NOEL COWARD (#603): THIS HAPPY BREED (Blu-Ray) - #605

There is a breezy simplicity to the 1944 Lean/Coward collaboration This Happy Breed that almost completely obscures the ambition of the piece. Based on Coward's original play, David Lean's team--including Ronald Neame on script and camera, as per usual--remove any staginess from the production and create a seamless history of one family's ups and downs from just after the end of World War I to the sketchy days just prior to World War II.

Robert Newton and Lean regular Celia Johnson star as Frank and Ethel Gibbons. Following Frank's discharge from the service, the Gibbons family--two daughters, a son, Ethel's mother, and Frank's sister--move into a home on High Street in London. Next door is one of Frank's army buddies, Bob Mitchell (Stanley Holloway, My Fair Lady [review]), and so this new homecoming is also like a reunion. Bob has one son, Billy (In Which We Serve's John Mills [review]), who wants to be a sailor, and he will eventually fall for Queenie Gibbons (Kay Walsh). The length of their relationship is one of This Happy Breed's many subplots.

The script moves swiftly, leapfrogging over the years, showing the changing times through the news, popular entertainment, and the advancement of technology, particularly the radio. The film examines just about everything: the influence of Communism and workers strife, increasing freedom for women, crackpot spirituality, and the encroaching winds of war. Parent and child disagree and then find common ground. Hotheaded youth succumbs to everyday life. Babies are born, family members die, and through it all, Frank and Ethel persevere, growing older and more gray. This Happy Breed is punctuated with two drinking binges by Frank and Bob--one midway through the picture on the night that Queenie disappears and the other near the end, when Neville Chamberlain woos England into believing that war is being averted. The men represent a generation that has seen much trouble in their time, and who are cautious about how easy it will be to avoid such trouble again.

This Happy Breed is phenomenally compact, and yet it doesn't sacrifice depth of story or character. It would have been rather easy to rely on cliché and stereotype, and in some ways, that happens--the other daughter, Vi (Eileen Erskine), falls for a rabblerousing Bolshevik (Guy Verney) who ultimately settles into the expected role of wage earner and social conservative--but the brilliance of Noël Coward's dialogue is how he uses average conversation to reveal so much about the people engaged in the talk. These are people really saying something, not just filling the time between opening and closing credits. One of the best scenes is when Frank gives his son, Reg (John Blythe), advice on the day of his wedding. Robert Newton nails the speech, covering his nerves with a stern, fatherly tone, and Coward's writing expertly dances around sensitive issues without resorting to trite euphemism. Frank says plenty about the birds and the bees both without ever mentioning either by name.

This Happy Breed doesn't build to a big crescendo. Rather, the story evolves to a natural place, and life's changes dictate how the Gibbons family will exit their cinematic excursion. In many ways, it reminds me of William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives, even if it is on a completely different continent and on the opposite side of WWII. The drama is never overwrought, the sentimentality never mawkish, and the decisions never easy, holding up a compelling mirror to an audience who likely had no difficulty recognizing themselves in the faces in the glass.

DAVID LEAN DIRECTS NOEL COWARD (#603): IN WHICH WE SERVE (Blu-Ray) - #604

All you need to know about the demeanor of 1942’s In Which We Serve comes from a scene three-quarters of the way through the nearly two-hour movie. A sailor of a lesser rank receives a letter that says his superior’s wife and mother have been killed in the blitz, and he has to go and tell the other man the bad news. They speak plainly, their voices maintaining a hushed reverence. It’s the epitome of the cliché of British reserve. Forget the upper lip, everything is stiff. And if you want to know just what kind of drama this propaganda production is, the scene ends with the younger man telling the older patriarchal figure that, though that fellow’s family is dead, his own wife survived and had a baby. One generation passes away, and another carries on.

The first collaboration between David Lean and Noël Coward had one specific purpose: to celebrate the troops and prepare a nation at war to handle the hard times ahead. There will be loss and heartbreak, but there will also be much to be proud of. The British Navy? Best there is!

In Which We Serve is a somber picture. It was instigated by Coward, who not only wrote, but he co-directed with a young David Lean and also starred in the movie as Captain “D.” Lean had worked on other movies, editing notable pictures like Anthony Asquith’s Pygmalion and the Archers’ own propaganda piece The 49th Parallel [review]; however, excepting some uncredited work directing sequences of Major Barbara [review], he had never worked behind the camera. Coward brought him on to aid in helming this dream project: a tribute to the Royal Navy that would attempt to portray true naval life. In this, In Which We Serve is successful. It’s one major recommending point to this day is its incredible footage of the naval ships being built and operated. It’s celluloid as essential to the historical record as any wartime documentary.

This stuff is fascinating, as is some of the battle footage. The filmmakers don’t overdue it in the combat scenes. The visual language for overly dramatic fight sequences was perhaps not yet developed, but there is something riveting about the unadorned nature of the skirmishes here. Shot from the ship’s deck, these scenes largely feature men taking coordinates, loading guns, and firing as the German ships circle back and forth, emptying ammo clips and dropping bombs. Sure, it’s a little dry, but the whole of In Which We Serve is dry. Even when it is melodramatic, it’s as dry as Noël Coward likely preferred his martinis.

The careful measurement of In Which We Serve’s narrative is both a fault and a virtue. While it likely served to rally the British people behind their armed services without hitting any regrettable racist caricatures or resorting to jingoist language, the lack of blood and guts ultimately drags. In Which We Serve is a long movie, easily too long. The upside is that Coward has invented a fantastic structural conceit for the film.

In Which We Serve begins out on the ocean as the HMS Torrin contends with a Nazi squadron. They end up beating the German’s ace pilot, but not before he delivers a crushing blow. A handful of men make it overboard, and they cling to a life raft, watching their ship sink and reminiscing about what got them there. The main focal points are the Captain (as played by Coward), and two men in his service, one an officer and one a lower-ranked enlisted man (the ones mentioned at the outset, and played by Bernard Miles and John Mills). We see the captain’s family, complete with wife (Celia Johnson) and kids, alongside the officer’s childless but loving marriage and the younger man’s new romance. He marries just before shipping out (his wife is Kay Walsh). The back-and-forth structure, including the captain’s own underwater reverie, dreaming of his beloved in anticipation of drowning, allows us to see how the camaraderie of warriors develops and also look at the consequences back home. How the battle affected the loved ones who were left behind must have been of utmost concern to the English populace.

All of the lead actors are very good, with Mills being the most memorable as the always-genial Shorty Blake. The most striking supporting performance, though, comes from a very young Richard Attenborough, stepping on screen a few years before his creepy star turn in Brighton Rock. Here he plays a disgraced soldier getting a second chance. Attenborough makes for a very convincing onscreen drunk.

Despite neither Lean nor Coward having directed before, and forgiving the overlong running time, they show an assured hand while dealing with an extremely ambitious, complicated production. Combat footage is never easy, and I would guess particularly not on the water. In Which We Serve never looks faked or chintzy. It’s a quality war picture, and even if it is totally dated, it serves its purpose.

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW ON FILM - ECLIPSE SERIES 20

George Bernard Shaw was one of the pre-eminent playwrights of the late 1800s and early 20th Century. He is one of those rare animals who were never bound by form, having written novels, short stories, and criticism in addition to his more famous stage productions. It is unsurprising then that his work would make an easy transition into the newer motion picture medium--and do so with Shaw's approval. The author impressively survived to see the ripe age of 94, finally passing on in 1950. He even won an Oscar in 1938 for his contribution to the adaptation of maybe his most famous play, Pygmalion.

Pygmalion was produced by Gabriel Pascal, and it was part of a fruitful collaboration between the two men. In fact, after Pygmalion, Pascal, who had begun his career making silent films in Germany, only produced Shaw adaptations, and the remainder of his film career is represented in the three films in this boxed set, George Bernard Shaw on Film - Eclipse Series 20. His devotion to Shaw was often as much of an albatross around the filmmaker's neck as it was a boon. Shaw even encouraged Pascal to expand his horizons prior to his death, but the director/producer only outlived his beloved writer by four years.

The movies in George Bernard Shaw on Film - Eclipse Series 20 span eleven years, 1942 to 1952. They consist of one wartime love story and two historical movies, one an epic and the other an allegorical comedy. They are linked only in as much as they came from the same mind. Shaw had an interest in human nature, and he was particularly fascinated by and critical of inconsistencies in behavior. From a Salvation Army mistress intent on rescuing the lost from eternal punishment to the vagaries of kings and man's limited capacity for beliefs other than his own, Shaw dissected hypocrisies with a clever wit and often withering disdain.

Major Barbara (121 minutes) was made in 1941. It is an updated version of Shaw's 1905 play, brought into modern times, and though the signs of WWII are everywhere--much of the sets show the damage done in the Blitz, and in fact were shot during those attacks--the actual war is mentioned little. The Major is not in the fighting forces, but a soldier in the Salvation Army. Played by the wonderful Wendy Hiller, who also starred in Pygmalion, she is a firm believer in every man's right to earn forgiveness in the eyes of God. Fearless and forthright, she has yet to meet the sinner who can stand up to her. Even the cynical scholar in Greek classics, the unfortunately named Adolphus Cusins (Rex Harrison, who starred in the Pygmalion retooling My Fair Lady years later), is willing to go along, drumming in the Army band just to be close to his new fiancée.

Barbara also has the distinction of being the eldest daughter in the Undershaft family, a well-to-do clan whose estranged father has gathered their fortunes from the spoils of conflict: he manufactures cannons. When Andrew Undershaft (Robert Morley) returns to settle some family business, he is challenged by his daughter give her religious lifestyle a serious look. He challenges her in return to consider taking over his factory. When daddy and a whiskey magnate donate heavily to the Salvation Army, bailing it out of its economic tailspin, it challenges Barbara's belief in what it takes to set right one's soul.

Major Barbara begins with a handwritten letter from Shaw, asking audiences to trust his vision and see his film, which was directed by Gabriel Pascal with assistance by David Lean and cinematography by Ronald Neame, as a parable. Indeed, much of what happens is abstracted from real life, and except for the juxtaposition of the war-torn backdrop, there is little here that is not purely cinematic invention. Which isn't meant to say it doesn't strike some actual emotional chords; Shaw understands this canvas better than any other, and he builds a large cast that not only includes the Undershafts, but gets into the lives of the people Barbara intends to help. She squares off with Bill Walker, a cockney bruiser played by Robert Newton, who suggests there are more practical concerns in the here and now that take precedence over the hereafter.

The film takes a strange turn in its third act. After Barbara rejects her rank, daddy offers her an alternative: she can believe in industry. The Undershafts and Adolphus visit his factory, and we see all the steel products the symbolically named Undershaft and Lazarus manufacture--not just the end product, but we also see footage of the mills at work. Andrew Undershaft has built a community for his workers, a kind of modern utopia where families live and toil in one big compound. It's not exactly socialism, more of a moralistic capitalism, and when Barabara sees even Bill can get on the straight and narrow once he's got something to do with his hands, she envisions a whole new avenue for rescuing men from damnation.

This ending is a bizarre mix of patriotism, capitalistic propaganda, and pro-worker jingoism that is pretty close to Bolshevism. (Adolphus is also rallying for workers rights at the start of the picture, which is its own bizarre story point.) It's hard to know how to take it, though, because there is almost an ironic falseness to it. In the last shot, you practically expect Hiller, Harrison, and Newton to wink at us. How much of this is satire? It's weird and over the top, a la Tony Richardson's The Loved One (still more than 20 years off). It left me scratching my head.

It also didn't really matter. Though most of the cast is pretty much playing stock roles, Wendy Hiller is so good as Major Barbara, the script is practically secondary. She's plucky and attractive, but she moves Barbara away from being a type and into something more authentic after her break with faith. Scenes of her alone, contemplating her heart as a bombed-out London sits in shadow behind her, make the whole movie seem rich and complex where once it came off as a mere trifle.

As perplexing as some of the ending of Major Barbara might be, I'd give up clarity for good not to have to sit through Caesar and Cleopatra (1945; 128 minutes) again. Once again directed by Pascal, it is based on a play written by Shaw at the turn of the century. The historical pageant is the story of how Julius Caesar (a sleepwalking Claude Rains) went to Egypt and met the precocious, overgrown adolescent Cleopatra (Vivien Leigh, on loan from David O'Selznick, as her credit tells us). The fearful Egyptians flee before the Roman might, convinced they are cannibals, and they somehow let their queen run off by herself to hide inside the Sphinx. To add insult to the improbable, Caesar meets her when she interrupts his soliloquy to the monument. He is smitten with her ditzy ranting, and takes her under his wing.

As far as epics go, Caesar and Cleopatra lacks any blood or thunder. The gears of war are clogged in red tape. Caesar roams around stating his case with a blithe vocabulary. The Egyptians say he will never rule, Cleo's tween brother is the true king; the occupying Roman army that came before Caesar says they'll keep the country they've conquered for themselves instead. Meanwhile, a Sicilian artist named Apollodorus (Stewart Granger) wanders in and out of scene, sporting a tan and bleached teeth, looking like he's misplaced his surfing movie. There's a lot of talking, but not much seems to be said. The script has traded wit for circular conversation. It's all a ghastly bore, as Caesar's British slave might say.

I can see what must have appealed about the original script. Cleopatra has an interesting arc, learning to be a political animal under Caesar's Mr. Miyagi-style tutelage. He laughs at her silly schemes, sprinkles a few homilies like fairy dust, and then walks away so she can simmer in the message. By the end of the movie, she's no longer cowering behind his skirt, but instead sending her scary witch (Flora Robson) to kill her rivals. Vivien Leigh is pretty terrible in the role, however. The writing does all the growing for her. Her performance as young Cleopatra consists of wide eyes and bubbly tones; adult Cleopatra scowls and speaks with a hiss. Pascal's production is just as false. The Technicolor spectacle never really looks convincing. Its grandeur is that of a backlot set.

Apropos of nothing, though maybe it serves as its own commentary on Caesar and Cleopatra, after I finished watching the DVD, I left the still menu sitting on the TV screen while I got my computer and prepared some food, etc. I left it up for about five minutes before I realized the pug I was babysitting was barking at it and not something outside on the street. Was it the color of yellow on the graphic, irking him like a red rag to a bull? Or was he just so sick of seeing Claude Rains and Vivien Leigh, he couldn't stand anymore? Not sure where he gets off if it's the latter, since he got to sleep through most of the movie.

There's a theory, most notably advanced by Orson Welles, that color is not the filmmaker's friend, that it exposes blemishes and distracts from the essentials. Perhaps that's part of Caesar and Cleopatra's problem, because the other Roman drama in this set, 1952's Androcles and the Lion (98 minutes), and its black-and-white rebuilding of the Coliseum works in all sorts of wonderful ways.

Gabriel Pascal takes a backseat here, still smarting from the box office failure of Caesar and Cleopatra (the seven years between productions, apparently, was not by choice). Chester Erskine (A Girl in Every Port) takes over directorial duties, adapting the Bernard Shaw play with co-writer Ken Englund. They've brought the story to life with a light comedic touch. Alan Young, who is probably most famous as the owner of the talking horse on Mr. Ed, was typecast as a lover of animals from the get-go. He plays Androcles, a big fan of furry creatures and a persecuted Christian who is the top of an alphabetical list of Jesus freaks sentenced to a date with the lions. While on the run, the gentle and bumbling tailor runs across one of those dreaded lions in the wilderness. Said king of the jungle has a thorn in his paw. Androcles removes that thorn, he and the big cat become friends, and Androcles even names him Tommy.

Androcles is arrested shortly thereafter, joining a band of merry Christian soldiers on a trek to Rome and the Coliseum. They travel under the guidance of a stern but thoughtful legionnaire, known only as Captain (Victor Mature). These curiously happy prisoners make him curious about what makes them so joyful, especially when one of them turns out to be a rather attractive damsel. Lavinia (Jean Simmons) is a true believer who takes no guff but is truly tender-hearted. Also amongst the group is Ferrovius, a bruiser with a crazy reputation. He apparently is quite the effective missionary, though his methods may be slightly off script. He is played by Robert Newton, who does the same Keith Moon impression here as he did in Major Barbara (though, I guess it's more likely that Moonie nicked the routine from him, given that Keith wouldn't even have picked up a pair of drumsticks yet). His testimonials are a highlight of Androcles and the Lion, and his character is far more interesting than Simmons's. She is merely a pretty face, and the romantic subplot with her and the Captain is predictable and shallow. Alan Young is the humorous glue of the piece. He orbits the other characters, adding corny asides, biding his time until the climax when he is reunited with Tommy. Their tango in the gladiatorial ring is funny in good ways and bad. The editing is really poor, making it painfully obvious that Young isn't actually with the lion most of the time, and the guy in the lion suit when the two of them quite literally dance is unintentionally hysterical.

Androcles and the Lion is kind of an odd duck. On one hand, it's pretty good secular entertainment; on the other hand, it wears its messages on its sleeve. That message is less pro-Christian than it is pro-tolerance. In fact, the heavier the Christian rhetoric, the more clumsy it seems, particularly given the anachronistic nature of much of what is said. Though Shaw's play dates back to 1912, the fable's message against persecuting people for their ideas and beliefs is one that was fairly common in 1950s pop culture. Shaw disliked hypocrites, and the verbal victories that Lavinia and Ferrovius win throughout the movie are usually in pointing out how their persecutors could just as easily have their own religion turned against them were they not in power. Androcles's love of all animals is meant to promote a respect for all living things, a respect that was often lacking in the contemporary political climate (as it often is now).

The scenes where Androcles's faith is tested on the arena dirt are actually pretty powerful, at least before the dance sequence. The movie goes on a little too long after that, everyone missing their cue to exit, but Androcles and the Lion is still an amusing distraction. I found myself laughing enough to forgive its quaint foibles, and it makes a fine companion to Major Barbara, even if we must take Caesar and Cleopatra in the middle.

For a full rundown on the special features, read the full article at DVD Talk.

BRIEF ENCOUNTER - #76

I make no secret of my pop culture obsession. I am like some kind of entertainment turkey baster, sucking in all the artistic juices, all the spices and the garnish I require, and then spraying it on whatever it is I have cooking. My books are full of references, a doffing of the cap to those who came before me, my influences worn on my dust jackets.

Usually, these are the product of happenstance. I don't go out looking for something to fit into a certain space so much as the reference just comes to me and I slot it in. Imagine my head as a kind of lotto machine, with all of these plastic balls being tossed around on the hot air I call my thought processes. On each ball is inscribed a particular pop culture nugget. As I'm working, I tug on an ear and one of the balls drops down, travels some metaphorical chute, and emerges on my computer screen. "The girl Julia meets is wearing a Garbage T-shirt," I type, realizing that this is the right shirt band for her. Girl power without denying the insecurities. Hey, baby, can you bleed like me.

There are times, though, of absolute serendipity. I won't be looking for a touchpoint, I won't even know I need it, and yet it will come strolling by nonetheless. Such is the case of the intersection between David Lean's 1946 weeper Brief Encounter and the fourth issue of the comic book I write, Love the Way You Love.

I had owned the DVD for Brief Encounter for at least four years. It was one of those amazing finds that collectors always love. I picked it up in a used bin at a now closed Portland record store, paying a measly amount. $8, I think. (Maybe $12. Those are the two numbers that come to mind.) That's an amazing deal, and there was no hesitation on my part, I snatched it up. Once I was home, I watched it almost immediately. Used discs always get priority in case there is an imperceptible-from-the-outside defect lurking in its second-hand nether regions.

In all honesty, the film didn't blow me away. I think part of it was that I was watching it less to be watching it and more to be checking it out, and so I probably tried to squeeze it into my schedule at an inappropriate time. Also, I don't think Brief Encounter is one of those films that does hit you right away. It's certainly not a mind-blower. When it ends, you're not going to turn to the cat, eyes wide with disbelief, and ask, "What the hell just happened to me?"

Rather, Brief Encounter is better as it ages. You need to take some time with it and let it settle. Its aftertaste is a big selling point. I know that as time passed, my memories of it grew increasingly fond.

David Lean, better known for epics like The Bridge Over the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia, adapted this intimate portrait of two lovers from a play by Noël Coward. Originally called Still Life when on the stage (and predicting some of the housewife longing in the Suede song of the same name), the play moved to the screen under the pens of Lean, Coward, and Anthony Havelock-Allan. It stars Celia Johnson as Laura and Trevor Howard as Alec, two lonely people who are married to others but find love in each other's arms.

Or, more precisely, they find love avoiding each other's arms. Theirs is an affair that never quite gets going, consigned to safe meetings in public places, the companionship more important than the sex. Their same-place, same-time appointments in a confined area reminds me a lot of another favorite of mine, Visconti's Dostoevsky-adaptation Le notti bianche (#296). Unlike that film, however, the affair in Brief Encounter isn't driven so much by hormones and romantic gesture as it is by loneliness and past mistakes. Neither Laura nor Alec ever foresaw that their lives would become so passionless, that they would end up with mates that weren't right for them. Social mores and familial obligation demands they stay the course and not indulge in the violence of emotion that adultery can foment. Neither of Visconti's lovers is married, and it's the violence of emotion that proves their downfall. Then again, perhaps it is also what keeps Lean's couple apart, as their efforts to be alone are what end up pointing out how foolhardy they are being.

Lean keeps the setting cramped in Brief Encounter. The locations of the story feel stifled, closed-in. Even when the ceiling is high or the room empty, he has his actors lean in, substituting the cramped quarters of conspiracy for the cramped physical quarters. Lean, working with director of photography Robert Krasker, shoots in black-and-white, capturing every dark shadow and white pillow of steam, a psychological landscape not unlike film noir. In fact, Brief Encounter could almost be considered a noir of the heart, what with its voiceover, the emphasis on the past (including how it's structured as flashback) and inescapable fate. Hide a sack of money somewhere in the train station, put a gun in an avenging husband's hand, and you've got a B-vehicle tailor-made for RKO.

I no longer remember what inspired me to watch Brief Encounter again last year, but when I did, I couldn't have been more pleased. Not only did I enjoy it immensely, but it also dovetailed perfectly with where I was at in Love the Way You Love.

For those of you who haven't read the comic book I do with Marc Ellerby (and published by Oni Press), it's a rock 'n' roll romance serial about Tristan and Isobel. When the pair meets, Isobel is engaged. Finding their attraction undeniable, however, they decide to risk it and indulge their passion. Unlike Laura and Alec in Brief Encounter, they go for it, and they must suffer the consequences the cinematic lovers decide to avoid. At the conclusion of chapter 3 (now collected in one volume as Love the Way You Love, Side A: Songs of Faith), they are together, but other things are falling apart. Momentarily worried by the speed at which they came together, Isobel asks Tristan a series of "get to know you" questions. He attempts to still her fears, saying, "There's time enough, though. Time enough to learn everything about one another. That's the adventure."

In its way, that's a pretty standard Jamie S. Rich line. In the first draft, I had him saying "We have all the time in the world," hearkening back to the My Bloody Valentine cover of that old James Bond theme mentioned earlier in the issue. Only problem was, I realized I already had the main character of my prose novel The Everlasting say the same thing. That's how standard a thought it is for me.

So, I am sure you can hear the kind of bells that went off when I heard Noël Coward's more fatalistic version of the same sentiment in Brief Encounter. Laura asks, "There's still time, if we control ourselves, behave like sensible human beings. There still time to--"

Alec cuts her off. "There's no time at all," he says.

I was in the middle of writing Love the Way You Love #4 when I heard that. I couldn't believe it. It was too perfect. My script had Isobel dealing with the fallout of her broken engagement, what it means for her and for Tristan's career. I had already intended to have her hiding from her new boyfriend, avoiding the phone, avoiding all the activity surrounding this new love. What better thing to have her doing than watching Brief Encounter, alone with her misery and tears?

It laced up the situation, a perfect fit. It served as a connector between what Isobel was feeling and what she was about to do, and it added resonance to lines that had come before. By choosing to show the moments we did, we gave those not familiar with Brief Encounter enough to get the point of their inclusion, and I would hope that anyone who recognized David Lean's movie in the pages of our comic would get an added jolt from the recognition.

Art informing art. It's the kind of thing I wrote about when I set up this venue. There are invisible threads connecting so many of these things. In writing about Brief Encounter, I also saw a link with Le notti bianche, old James Bond themes, and the rock group Suede. It may be hubris to insert myself into this, I can only hope to be so fondly remembered one day, but the thread is there for me whether I deserve to wrap it around my typing fingers or not.

BLAST FROM MY OWN PAST: HOPSCOTCH - #163

In setting this up space, I recalled that at one point years ago, I had made my first "Criterion Confession" on the Confessions of a Pop Fan blog. This little ditty was written on February 16, 2003, and it was probably only my 50th or so ever post. Oh, to be so young and in the glamorous throes of a debilitating fever:

I am Jamie, and I have an addiction.

Many of my friends know this. They were plagued by it last week when, in a mad rush, I attempted to keep a particular high from slipping away.

I am addicted to Criterion DVDs. Let’s call them Crackterion. The Crackterion Collection. There are over 150 ways for me to shoot up with Crackterion, and I haven’t tried them all yet. Last week I found out that one of those ways, How To Get Ahead in Advertising, starring Richard E. Grant, was going out of print. It was already going for about double retail on eBay. These things go out of print and the other freaks start paying outrageous prices for ‘em. Salo is the most expensive, I’ve seen it sell for $300 to $600, despite no one liking it very much (it’s one of the two OOP titles I lack). So I was e-mailing people in different states, saying, “Call your local Tower or Borders. Let’s find this disc!” I couldn’t turn one up, though my addiction partner, Christopher McQuain, who now lives in Seattle, found it right away in an outlying suburb. He needed it for himself, though. It’s luck, I guess, because when the Jacques Tati films disappeared, I found Mon Oncle at a closing Tower on it’s very last day of business and got it insanely cheap. (I finally got Advertising for a so-so price on eBay, and if any of the two I have on backorder show up, I can make my money back easy.)

What is so special about Criterion? Here is how they describe themselves: “The Criterion Collection, a continuing series of important classic and contemporary films, is dedicated to gathering the greatest films from around the world and publishing them in editions that offer the highest technical quality and award-winning, original supplements. Criterion began with a mission to pull the treasures of world cinema out of the film vaults and put them in the hands of collectors. All of the films published under the Criterion banner represent cinema at its finest. In our seventeen years, we've seen a lot of things change, but one thing has remained constant: our commitment to publishing the defining moments of cinema in the world's best digital editions.”

If the Criterion name is on it, I will gamble with a film and buy it. Even if it’s not an instant favorite, or if the film is flawed, they usually have picked it for a special reason. Because of them, I know now who Douglas Sirk, Samuel Fuller, Wong Kar-Wai, Lynne Ramsay, Rene Clair, Yasujiro Ozu, and the Maysles brothers are; I have tried Fellini, Bergman, and Truffaut; I have seen films I had never seen before from Preston Sturges, David Lean, the Archers, Michelangelo Antonioni, and Luis Bunuel. And they don’t just do art pictures. They’ve done classic ‘50s horror like The Blob, they’ve released Michael Bay films (yeah, I know, but no one is perfect), they did excellent editions of Chasing Amy and Wes Anderson’s last two films. Their double-disc Beastie Boys anthology may just be the best music video compilation there is.

And you know how they sucker me? They number the spines. Yes, they get the old comic book geek in me by making it so I have to have them all or I will be missing something. Someday I will have to buy Armageddon or risk not having a #40, of having a hole between Suzuki’s Tokyo Drifter (#39 – which I still need) and Olivier’s Henry V (#41 – got it). They even give you a scorecard in the package, so I can sit there with a Sharpie and mark off the ones I have and look for the ones I need. I have an eBay system set up, with the prices I want to pay to get a good deal on the particular films (they are priced at two tiers--$29.95 and $39.95 retail, depending on the set; I try to get them cheaper on eBay. If I buy retail, I go to Deep Discount DVD or DVD Planet, as they consistently have the best prices). It’s really sick. They prey on obsessive personalities like mine.

I am not admitting my addiction because I wish to overcome it. I only seek understanding, patience. I will not change. As I was typing this, Amazon notified me that my copy of the Crackterion Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas that is coming out Tuesday just shipped. It gave me a thrilling jolt. I refuse to let that go.

* * *

How little shelving space I must have needed in comparison back then. The good old days!

A month later, on March 8th, I wrote again on Pop Fan, this time about a film I had seen with my father, and how past movies have a certain resonance. That film was Hopscotch.

I watched a 1980 film called Hopscotch this evening. It stars Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, Ned Beatty, and Sam Waterston from Law and Order. The liner notes in the Criterion DVD call it the “only ‘feel-good’ realistic spy film ever made,” and I think it’s a pretty good call. It’s definitely a charming film, with Matthau, of course, working his magic, playing a CIA agent who, rather than fade into bureaucratic obscurity, leads his fellow agents on a worldwide chase while leaking to them chapters of his very revealing memoirs. The film occasionally suffers from some ’70s television-style direction (Matthau departs on a joke, zoom in on the woman laughing!), but overall is a fun, obscure gem.

Watching it, however, was a tad bittersweet. I first saw Hopscotch 22 years ago, when it was in the theatres. It was a movie we had ended up settling on, after a long day of fighting between my parents.

You see, going to the movies wasn’t done when I was young. My father was a pastor and the church forbade it. Or at least my mother felt that way. To be honest, I don’t know for sure. My earliest film memories are of my dad sneaking off to the college near where we lived several times when I was very young (like four years old, maybe) and watching movies in their theatre, bringing me along. From the snatches of memory I have, it was mainly kung-fu movies, and oddly enough, Animal House. My young male mind recorded the scene where the woman takes her shirt off in the back of the car. Probably my first bra.

So, my dad enjoyed movies, and my mom didn’t.

We moved to California when I was seven, and he left the ministry. This corresponded with me becoming more aware of the cultural aspect of films. I was the only kid in my class who hadn’t seen Star Wars I am sure. (And before the wags try to say this is why I despise that film now, I should point out that when Empire was released, I sat in the theatre watching ever showing straight through one Saturday, and I used to shoplift Jedi action figures. It was an education in story that made me detest George Lucas. In other words, fuck yourself.) I think my new awareness connected both to just being in school and also, in Michigan, we only got two channels on our TV; in California, I discovered the joys of syndication and afternoon cartoons, and so became an advertising target. I started lobbying to see films, because I wanted to be part of it all. I think I first won with Lady & the Tramp, likely because it was Disney (church on Sunday nights had always caused me to miss The Wonderful World of Disney as well, so this was a big deal). The second movie was The Black Stallion. My mother tried to make me feel guilty about this, since I was bringing sin into the house. She pointed at my dad on the phone, and said, “See what he’s doing for you? He’s been calling around all day trying to find tickets?” I know now what bullshit that was, he was probably calling for show times, but to a seven-year-old, that was serious guilt.

I was probably eight by the time we saw Hopscotch. The movie my dad really wanted to see was Raging Bull. He told me this, and I burst out with, “But dad, that movie is rated R!” He tried to shush me, but it was too late. The row began. And it lasted all day, until finally my dad put his foot down and took us to Hopscotch. We waited in the car when he went to buy tickets, and my mother turned to me and said, “We’ll go see it with him, but we won’t enjoy it.” I can see how fitting it was now that she was creating a covert conspiracy, given the film’s subject matter. It was rated R, too, but really, she had nothing to worry about. Beatty says “fuck” about four times, one person says “son of a bitch,” but there is no sex and no bloodshed. It’s pretty tame. (And I knew those words already, and used them liberally on the playground.)

Very little memory remained of Hopscotch. Ned Beatty beating on the hood of the car (one of the times he said “fuck,” too), an inept agent being cornered by a Doberman, and that’s about it. I can see my dad really enjoying the film, and had I not been poisoned, I probably would have too. Matthau’s shenanigans would have been right up my alley.