Eddie Muller Talks

Check out the Indianapolis Star's recent interview with "cultural archeologist" and film noir expert Eddie Muller. It's a good introduction to Muller and his work. There's also a bit of encouraging news for fans of the Lizabeth Scott masterpiece Too Late For Tears...

Read the interview here.

MILDRED PIERCE Trailer

It's too early to say for sure, but the most exciting noir-related event of the year might well be the premiere of director Todd Haynes's HBO mini-series adaptation of James M. Cain's novel MILDRED PIERCE. It's a five part series, a strong indication that Haynes and his collaborators will be sticking closer to the novel than to Michael Curtiz's 1945 noir starring Joan Crawford. A look at the trailer for the film seems to bear this out. I for one am relieved by this. Curtiz's film is excellent, so there's no reason to remake a film that got pretty much everything right the first time. The book, however, is quite different from the '45 film, and Haynes clearly sees untapped possibilities in the original material. The mini-series format seems ideally suited for Cain's melodrama, and with a cast including Kate Winslet, Evan Rachel Wood, and Guy Pearce, this looks like it could be something special.

Look for it in March.

View the trailer here.

2010 Addendum

above: Sean Harris scaring the shit out of Paddy Considine in RED RIDING 1980


Some parting thoughts:

1. 2010 was the year of the Dude. After nearly forty years or so of being everyone's favorite underappreciated actor, Jeff Bridges had the biggest year of his career. He won Best Actor at the Oscars for CRAZY HEART, starred in TRON: LEGACY (a film I had no interest in seeing, but hey it hit number one at the box office so what do I know?) and he topped off the year with a critical and commercial hit with TRUE GRIT. On top of that, have you noticed that his cult status as "the Dude" has reached a the level where it's nearly always mentioned when people write about him? This would be a box for most actors--chaining them forever to that one role--but Bridges is so good it's simply a plus. Add Bad Blake and Rooster Cogburn to his roster of great roles. Not many actors go from star to superstar at 60, but then again some people age into their best selves. Bogart and Clooney, for example, were pretty much nonentities until they hit a certain age, and Meryl Streep has gone from critic's darling to box office power house in the last few years. Gotta love it when that happens.

2. I forgot to mention in the last post that one of the best experiences I had at the movies this year was spending at day at the E Street Cinema in Washington DC watching the RED RIDING Trilogy. Watching these black-as-midnight films back to back was exhausting (in retrospect, it was too much to absorb in one day), but the exhaustion was well-earned. The trilogy--a neo-noir epic set in England and centering around serial child killings and police corruption--is a deep dive into a very dark pool. The filmmaking (by writer Tony Grisoni and directors Julian Jarrold, James Marsh, Anand Tucker ) is superb from start to finish, but my favorite of the films was probably the second film RED RIDING: IN THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1980 with its terrifying performance by Sean Harris as a dirty cop. See a trailer for the trilogy here.

3. Still haven't seen a movie in 3D. I suppose I should take the plunge so I can know what I'm talking about, but god I don't want to see a movie in 3D.

4. In the few days, I'm going to see THE KING'S SPEECH and I LOVE YOU PHILLIP MORRIS. Here's a list of what I missed at the movies this year and hope to catch on Netflix in the months to come:

SCOTT PILGRIM VS. THE WORLD
THE SOCIAL NETWORK
LET ME IN
ANIMAL KINGDOM
RED
CONVICTION
COMPANY MEN
WELCOME TO THE RILEYS
127 HOURS

Of the top thirty highest grossing films of the year, I saw two, INCEPTION and SHUTTER ISLAND. (I just realized this. Odd that they both star Leo.) INCEPTION was okay for an hour and then got boring. SHUTTER ISLAND was a potboiler mystery with a trick ending and a whole lot of dead children--which is to say it leave a cheap aftertaste. I did not have a desire to see any of the other twenty-eight movies on the list. My finger, as always, is not on the pulse of the American public.

My 2010 At The Movies

I went to the movies 53 times this year. That's more than once a week, I'm happy to say. Some highlights, low lights, and reflections:

1. The best experience I had at the movies this year was attending the Orson Welles retrospective at the AFI in Silver Spring, MD. I saw, on the big screen, every film Welles made (with the exception of THE IMMORTAL STORY) from HEARTS OF AGE to F FOR FAKE. I saw CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT twice. It was, without a doubt, the best movie I saw at the theater this year.

2. My favorite new movie of the year was Darren Aronofsky's BLACK SWAN. I'll write more about it in the coming weeks, I'm sure, but for now I want to report my experience. I saw it once and liked it. I saw it a second time and fell in love. That second time, knowing the plot, all the pieces fell into place. It's a dark, passionate, goofy, overblown, ridiculous masterpiece about a ballerina played by Natalie Portman who loses her mind as she prepares for the lead role in a production of Swan Lake. I love movies that love movies, and this movie is alive with style. It's also, my friends, noir to the bone. See it and then watch George Cukor's A DOUBLE LIFE.

3. I'm now in love with Natalie Portman. It's an odd thing. I've been watching her for years now without this happening. It's like being friends with someone for a long time and then suddenly making out at a party.

4. The other wildly stylistic movie I loved this year was Guadagnino's I AM LOVE. No other movie I saw this year was as energized by a sheer passion for filmmaking. Pushed along by the music of John Adams and painted in vibrant color by the cinematographer Yorick Le Saux, this is a cinematic Madam Bovary starring Tilda Swinton as a middle-aged woman falling in love with her son's business partner. See the trailer here.

5. The biggest disappointment of the year was Winterbottom's THE KILLER INSIDE ME. I waited breathlessly for this movie for two years, and I was treated to a confused misogynistic mess.

6. WINTER'S BONE-Southern Gothic by way of Ozark noir. It gets 4 1/2 stars from this Ozark native. It would have gotten 5 stars if they'd set it in Arkansas instead of Missouri.

7. From the "It was okay" files: CYRUS, THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT, INCEPTION.

8. THE TOWN was a lot of fun until a weak final act. I'm officially in favor of Ben Affleck continuing his career. Especially as a director of crime films.

9. From the "It sucked" files: GET LOW, YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER.

10. Great movies about tough guys that also feature great performances by women: TRUE GRIT and THE FIGHTER. I've written about the former, as for the latter--Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale do a beautiful duet as two brothers, one a promising boxer, the other an ex-promising boxer turned crack addict. Bale's a typhoon of need and self-pity while Wahlberg continues to demonstrate that he's one of our most underrated and misunderstood actors. As good as these boys are, though, the movie is nearly stolen by the fierce tug-of-war between Melissa Leo and Amy Adams as, respectively, Wahlberg's controlling mother and strong-willed girlfriend. Leo keeps adding to her impressive credits, but Adams is the shocker here. I loved her lovely and fragile characterizations in DOUBT and JUNEBUG, but in this film she completely superseded what I thought she was capable of. She's got steel in her spine, and she can throw a punch, too.

11. Finally, one last shout out for THE AMERICAN, the quiet little drama about a hit man (played by George Clooney) trying to retire in Italy. Not everyone's cup of espresso, but I loved it.

Postscript: Went to the movies one last time, on New Year's Eve. Saw Black Swan for a third time. I like seeing movies multiple times in the theater because it allows the viewer to observe the film more as an object. Last night, I was able to look at Black Swan less as a movie that I really love (and I do really love it) and more as a subject of study. I noticed, for instance, the way the color pink is threaded throughout the first half of the film (the grapefruit, the wallpaper, Portman's coat, a painting on the wall of the hospital corridor), but it almost disappears after the nightclub dancing scene (which is bathed in red). I was also able to more fully appreciate the way the film follows the basic structure of the Swan Lake ballet and marries it to a style is equal parts neo-noir and werewolf movie.

The List: What I Saw at the Theater in 2010

1. The Book of Eli
2. Edge of Darkness
3. Crazy Heart
4. The Hurt Locker
5. Shutter Island
6. The White Ribbon
7. What's Up Doc?
8. Only Angels Have Wings
9. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington
10. Unforgiven
11. A Foreign Affair
12. The Ghost Writer
13. Red Riding: 1974
14. Red Riding: 1980
15. Red Riding:1983
16. Archival Gotham Short Films: The Hearts of Age/The City/The Tender Game
17. The Third Man
18. Orson Welles: One Man Band
19. The Magnificent Ambersons
20. Citizen Kane
21. The Stranger
22. The Lady From Shanghai
23. Macbeth
24. Othello
25. Mr. Arkardin
26. Touch of Evil
27. The Trial
28. F for Fake
29. Chimes at Midnight
30. Chimes at Midnight (a second time)
31. The Ipcress File
32. Get Carter
33. The Idiot
34. I Am Love
35. Winter's Bone
36. Date Night
37. The Killer Inside Me
38. The Godfather
39. The Kids Are All Right
40. Inception
41. Cyrus
42. The American
43. Get Low
44. The Town
45. You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
46. Criss Cross
47. Act of Violence
48. Highway 301
49. The Room
50. Black Swan
51. True Grit
52. The Fighter
53. Black Swan (second time)
54. Black Swan (third time)

True Grit (2010)

Back in 1999, I worked at a used bookshop in Little Rock. I was stacking books one day when Charles Portis, the author of TRUE GRIT, walked in. He was a semi-regular in our store who usually came in accompanied by Dee Brown, the elderly author of BURY MY HEART AT WOUNDED KNEE. Although the ninety-year old Mr. Brown was a jovial and natural raconteur, Mr. Portis, in his sixties at the time, was always quiet and reserved. The day he came in alone he was in search of a movie guide with a good selection of Westerns. I showed him what we had and apologized for the slim pickings. "These are a little old," I said. "Might not have much new stuff in them."

He shrugged. "Aw, I don't much like the new stuff, anyway."

I wonder what he'll make of the new adaptation of his most famous novel. The book--a masterpiece of American fiction--was, of course, adapted once before by director Henry Hathaway. At the time, the film was greeted as a turning point for star John Wayne and seen as a demystification of his screen image. This was supposed to be Wayne all roughed up, not quite as heroic as we were used to seeing him. All due respect to Hathaway (a fine director whose best work is probably the noir KISS OF DEATH), the hype around TRUE GRIT was always a bit overstated. It's an entertaining film, but Wayne was only playing a slightly more eccentric version of the sexless authoritarian figures he'd been playing in Westerns since he aged out of leading man roles in the sixties.

The new film, written and directed by the invaluable Coen brothers, hews closer than the previous film to the novel in tone and plot. The story is told by a 14-year old girl named Mattie Ross from Yell county, Arkansas who strikes out to track down her father's murderer. She enlists the help of a one-eyed, whiskey-swilling federal marshal named Rooster Cogburn, and the two are joined on their journey by a loquacious Texas Ranger named La Boeuf.

The Coens haven't been completely faithful to the book--for instance, they've added a strange new sequence involving a hanged man and a fellow wearing a bear's head for a hat--but their love of Portis's novel, especially its rich language, is palpable. In most Westerns, even in most great Westerns, there's no attempt made to try and replicate the sound of speech from the 1800s. One of the pleasures of Portis's novel, however, is the way the characters--Mattie, in particular--have a speech pattern that blends rural slang and formalized speech patterns. It's at once coarser and classier than the way most of us speak now. Since one of the real gifts of the brothers Coen is their ability to mine the regional verbal gold of an ever expanding swath of America--think FARGO, RAISING ARIZONA, A SERIOUS MAN--they are especially suited to the task of bringing Portis's language to the screen. Although it takes a few minutes to get used to lack the lack of contractions, the result is a kind of distinctive rural poetry.

The film, like so much of the Coens' best work, is an ensemble piece: Jeff Bridges makes for a surly and capable Rooster Cogburn, a man whose lack of grace is made up for by his abundance of...well, grit. Matt Damon is all kinds of wonderful as the self-important La Boeuf--it's nice to see the star, so often cast as the laconic outsider, utilizing his comic chops. Barry Pepper and Josh Brolin play the kinds of bad guys we never see in movies anymore: nasty characters who are nevertheless recognizably human. And spearheading this gang of misfits is young Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross. A 14-year old from California, Steinfeld seems to slip effortlessly into the skin of a preternaturally mature girl from 19th century Arkansas. More to the point, she's able to convey Mattie's essential quality, what Ethan Coen calls "the unflinching, four-square Protestant thing that defines the character." The actress is too pretty for the role, but when she sets her jaw and stares down the men of violence surrounding her, you believe her.

In the end, it's best to keep in mind that TRUE GRIT is the story of an old woman (a self-described "spinster") looking back on her moment of triumph. The smartest move the Coens make here (and they make almost exclusively good moves) is to keep the frame story in place. The film's opening shot begins as a murky haze that slowly clarifies into the image of Mattie's dead father. This is Mattie looking back through time and distance. When we rejoin her at the end of the film, she is old and malformed by her adventure, but she is who she is, the kind of headstrong character who deserves the title of "peculiar." That peculiar woman is who comes across in the pages of the novel, and that's who comes across here.

I hope Portis approves.

***

For more on Portis read here.

Merry Christmas From the Dark Side of Dream Town

As always, remember the reason for the season. Remember that Christmas is the birthday of a very special man born a long, long time ago: Humphrey Bogart. Happy 111th, Bogie!

Wellesnet.com

The internet has been a godsend to the legacy of Orson Welles, allowing for the accelerated development of the community of fanatics devoted to his work. The leader in all things Welles is Wellesnet.com, a meeting ground for the truly obsessive. It's latest post is a reprint of Andrew Sarris's spot-on criticism of "Raising Kane" Pauline Kael's abominable hatch job on Welles. Read it here.

The site also has a page on Facebook which contains an unbeatable collection of photos, stills, and posters. Recently they posted this scene that Orson Welles cut out of his 1962 masterpiece The Trial. The sound has been lost to us, unfortunately, but some titles have been added to approximate the script. It's a fascinating glimpse of Welles's process. A constant experimenter, he wrote and shot this scene only to cut it out after the film had already premiered. This is evidence, as Welles once told Peter Bogdanovich, that he hated to watch his own films because he always had the urge to tinker with them.