Don't Change Your Husband (Gloria Swanson, 1919)

Cecil B. DeMille (1881–1959) is known as the director of The Cheat (1915). Among the more than fifty silent films he made—before he moved on to grandiose Biblical and classical epics such as The Ten Commandments and Cleopatra—are several compelling domestic dramas about the problems of modern life. These include six racy bedroom comedies, reflecting the moral freedoms that emerged after World War I.

Five of these films starred Gloria Swanson, which made her a star. These films were known for their lavish costumes and luxurious sets, especially Swanson's dresses, which—although sometimes grotesque to modern viewers—were famous in their day. Gloria Swanson (1899–1983) is best known for her work in silent films. In the late 1910s and 1920s, she became one of the most successful and glamorous stars of the silent film era. Swanson's popularity was fueled by her dramatic roles, extravagant fashions, and turbulent personal life, which included multiple marriages and high-profile affairs. In the early 1930s, with the advent of sound films, her career began to wane, but she remained a compelling figure. Her remarkable comeback in Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard (1950), in which she played Norma Desmond, a silent film star who is pure faded glory, earned her an Oscar nomination and cemented her legacy.

DeMille's "marriage films" typically explore relationship dynamics, infidelity, and societal expectations surrounding marriage. Here are the six films often referred to as his "marriage films":
• Old Wives for New (1918): About a man who files for divorce from his unrefined wife to marry a younger, more refined woman.
• Don't Change Your Husband (1919): About a woman who divorces her slovenly husband to marry a more charming man, only to discover that her new marriage is far from perfect. This film is discussed further below.
• For Better, For Worse (1919): Following a couple as they endure the hardships of World War I, the film explores the idea of ​​loyalty and commitment in difficult times.
• Male and Female (1919): Contrasts the societal roles of men and women, using a shipwreck scenario to explore class and gender dynamics and romantic complications.
• Why Change Your Wife? (1920): A man leaves his wife for a younger woman, but later realizes that his ex-wife, after reinventing herself, is the one he truly loves.
• The Affairs of Anatol (1921): A man named Anatol becomes disillusioned with his wife and embarks on a series of romantic adventures, eventually reconciling with her.

These films reflect DeMille's fascination with the institution of marriage as it evolved in the early 20th century. They combine drama, humor, and moral lessons, often presented in the exuberant visual style that is characteristic of DeMille's work.

But now for Don't Change Your Husband! Leila Porter (Gloria Swanson) is fed up with her busy businessman husband, James Denby Porter (Elliott Dexter). While she is romantic, he is downright prosaic. Porter is approaching middle age: his waistline is expanding, he smokes stinking cigars, and he keeps hiding behind his newspaper. Meanwhile, the youthful Leila (Swanson was 20 when she played the role, Dexter 49) yearns not for grand romantic gestures, but just a little attention. When he forgets their wedding anniversary and arrives late for dinner with the minister and his wife, he even tries to pass off the minister’s anniversary gift as his own, only to dive into a plate of scallions (giving his wife smelly kisses in the process). Romance is clearly not on Porter’s agenda, and it’s only a matter of time before the long-suffering Leila’s gaze wanders.

A third guest at the Porters’ anniversary dinner is the handsome womanizer Schuyler Van Sutphen (Lew Cody), a smooth charmer. His thin mustache, curling upward at the ends, is a clear warning that he is not a pure character (and his lustful glances at Leila confirm this), but the love-hungry Leila sees none of this. Sutphen soon lures her away from her husband. There’s a memorable scene, in true DeMille style, in which Cody seduces Swanson with promises of wealth, pleasure, and love. As he whispers these things to her, she fantasizes about the scenes. Pleasure is depicted by Swanson sitting on an elaborate swing and being pushed across a pool by several men. Wealth shows her in an extravagant headdress, haughtily throwing her head back while half-naked black servants offer her jewels and gems. Love is depicted as she and a man dressed in animal skins running through a jungle together. Pure nonsense, but very entertaining, and Swanson looks beautiful. 

Eventually she gives in to temptation and leaves her husband for the new lover.

But after her second marriage, Leila discovers that Van Sutphen has even more irritating habits than her first husband. Moreover, he is having an affair with another woman, a catty lady named Toodles (played by Julia Faye), and has gambled away his fortune, forcing Leila to sell her diamonds to help him out of debt. Meanwhile, Porter pulls himself together: he hires a personal trainer and starts exercising, renews his wardrobe and shaves off his mustache. Soon he is the one who looks attractive, while Leila becomes increasingly disillusioned.

When Leila discovers that her first husband still loves her and would like her back, she decides to divorce again and remarries James. In 1919, divorce was a highly shocking and unusual phenomenon, and audiences would have been surprised by DeMille's nonchalant approach to this then-taboo subject.

Swanson looks radiant as ever and delivers a tremendously likeable performance, despite playing an adulterous wife. Dexter convincingly masters the transformation from dowdy clown to sleek, self-assured man. Yet it is Lew Cody's wily Schuyler Van Sutphen, nicknamed Bingo by his mistress Toodles, who provides the most amusing moments.

Don't Change Your Husband is a highly entertaining comedy about the foibles of love that never takes itself too seriously.

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My goal is to discover interesting movies that are not already on all the "greatest movie" lists.

The Abyss (1913) - Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913) - The Cheat (1915) - Tigre reale (1916) - The Oyster Princess (1919) - Don't Change Your Husband (1919) - Erotikon (1920) - The Flapper (1920) - Foolish Wives (1921) - Madame Beudet (1922) - The Woman from Nowhere (1922) - A Woman of Paris (1923) - Girl Shy (1924) - The Marriage Circle (1924) - Flesh and the Devil (1926) - It (1927) - Italian Straw Hat (1927) - Underworld  (1927) - The Devious Path (1928) - L'Argent (1928) - Sadie Thompson (1928) - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) - People on Sunday (1930)

All films discussed in this blog are public domain and can be watched via YouTube or Archive.org

 

 

Early German film: The Oyster Princess (Ernst Lubitsch, 1919)

Ernst Lubitsch (1892–1947) was a German film director who achieved his greatest successes in Hollywood. His films are characterized by sophisticated humor with sexual undertones and an elegant style so distinctive that the term "Lubitsch touch" was coined to describe it. Among his best-known works are Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942), and Heaven Can Wait (1943).

Before Lubitsch moved to Hollywood in 1922, he directed more than 30 films in Germany, many of which he also acted in. Unfortunately, his German films are virtually unknown today, which is a shame. As a director, Lubitsch alternated between comedies and grand historical dramas. While the latter likely contributed most to his international success and eventual invitation to Hollywood, it is his sharp and witty comedies that remain the most enjoyable today. Here are a few examples:

Shoe Palace Pinkus (1916), his first film, is about a Jewish boy (played by Lubitsch) who begins working in a shoe store and, through his business acumen, rises to become a shoe tycoon.

A Merry Prison (1917) is a light comedy based on Strauss's operetta Die Fledermaus, following the antics of a wealthy couple and their maid in a lively, party-filled Berlin.

In Meyer from Berlin (1918), Lubitsch plays a sharp young Berliner of Jewish descent who goes on vacation alone (leaving his young wife behind) in search of adventure, though things don’t go as planned.

Kohlhiesel's Daughters (1920) adapts the premise of The Taming of the Shrew to 19th-century Bavaria, set against a backdrop of a beautiful snowy landscape.

However, Lubitsch’s best film from this period is The Oyster Princess (1919), a grotesque comedy about the marriage of the spoiled daughter of an American millionaire.

In the late 1910s, after Germany’s defeat in World War I and the establishment of a new democratic republic, the country entered a period of intense social, cultural, and intellectual renewal. With the lifting of the moral censorship imposed under the Kaiser, Berlin became a hotbed of artistic innovation, with cabaret and entertainment thriving as significant economic engines.

It was in this cultural climate, on June 26, 1919, that Ernst Lubitsch released one of the most intriguing films of his silent era, The Oyster Princess. The film was a vehicle for actress Ossi Oswalda (1898–1947), with whom Lubitsch had previously worked in I Don’t Want to Be a Man and The Doll, both also from 1919. Ossi's persona teetered precariously between mischievous ingénue and dissolute nymph—arguably a new "type" for German cinema.

In I Don’t Want to Be a Man, Ossi plays a whiskey-swilling, tobacco-chewing young woman whose world is upended when, frustrated with her cloistered life, she sneaks out dressed as a young man, only to discover that being a man has its own disadvantages. She learns that the treatment she receives as a man is far less gentle than what she’s used to as a woman.

The Doll (1919) is full of fairy-tale-like unreality, with an emphasis on this artificiality for heightened effect. Lubitsch used cardboard sets, reminiscent of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, but here they are bright and colorful, enhancing the film’s playful tone. It’s a delightful and even kinky burlesque, infused with Lubitsch's famous light, witty, and graceful touch. The frothy story follows a young prince who, desperate to avoid marriage, agrees to marry a lifelike mechanical doll (somewhat like a precursor to a modern blow-up sex doll). Of course, things don’t go as planned—the doll turns out to be much more "real" than he expected.

While The Oyster Princess may not have the most radical premise of Ossi Oswalda’s career, it was her raciest role to date. She plays the spoiled, unmarried daughter of an oyster magnate who decides that if the shoeshine boy's daughter can marry a prince, then so can she. The film opens in the vast Berlin palace of Mr. Quaker, the American "Oyster King," puffing on an oversized cigar—a fitting symbol of his fat-cat status. But then the camera pans back to reveal that the cigar is being held by an impeccably dressed Black servant. Another servant holds a cup of tea to Quaker's mouth, while yet another stands ready to wipe any drips from his lips. A fourth servant is on hand to comb Quaker's hair when it becomes tangled, as he sits idly by.

This is the grotesquerie of The Oyster Princess: the exaggeration of its characters to highlight their flaws. In Quaker's palatial mansion, the bright Art Deco design emphasizes the empty spaces between its occupants. The opulent décor is used to full effect as an endless stream of servants pass each other four abreast on the staircase.

Quaker discovers that, in a fit of frustration, his spoiled daughter (Ossi Oswalda) has demolished her room out of sexual agitation, crying for a prince to marry. (In preparation for future motherly duties, she takes a doll out of the bathtub and holds it upside down to dry.) Papa promises to find her a suitable royal. He sends a request to matchmaker Seligson (Max Kronert) to locate an appropriate husband for his brash daughter. The matchmaker’s suitor index—pinned to a wall in a way that seems a precursor to Tinder—finally reveals a match in Prince Nucki (Harry Liedtke), an indebted, down-on-his-luck nobleman who conceals his wealth from his poorer friends and his poverty from his wealthier acquaintances. Seeing an opportunity to restore his fortune, Nucki sends his bald, dim-witted friend Josef (Julius Falkenstein) to assess the bride-to-be, setting the stage for the ensuing misunderstanding. Vulgar luxury, false nobility, and the marriage-swapping trick are all grist for Lubitsch's satirical mill.

When Josef arrives at the Quakers' residence, he mistakenly presents Prince Nucki’s calling card as his own. Ossi is unimpressed with the visitor, but eager to be married, and believing Josef to be the prince, she rushes them to a priest. There, Ossi is immediately wed to Josef under Prince Nucki’s name. A hurried but well-attended wedding reception follows. Though neither Mr. Quaker nor Ossi are fond of her new husband, Josef thoroughly enjoys the raucous celebration, which includes a wildly filmed “Foxtrot epidemic” that causes the entire household, including the staff, to break into dance. Josef eats and drinks as if he’s never eaten or drunk in his life before!

Meanwhile, after a night of carousing with friends, the real Prince Nucki stumbles into a carriage that takes him to a meeting of the Multi-Millionaires’ Daughters Association Against Dipsomania, of which Ossi is a member. There, they meet and are instantly smitten. Not yet knowing each other’s true identities, both are distraught—she, believing herself recently married, and he, believing himself betrothed. Josef soon finds them together and, laughing, asks, “Do you know that you two are married to each other?” The happy couple celebrates with a second, much smaller reception. In the end, Ossi, Prince Nucki, and Mr. Quaker are all pleased with the match.

Finally, when the newlyweds retire to their bedroom, Papa is caught peeping through the keyhole to see if any “fruitful actions” are taking place. The couple is framed in a keyhole iris, with the winking patriarch finally impressed.

Lubitsch skillfully plays on the interdependence between the Nouveau Riche and the impoverished aristocracy of the Old World, mocking both with impeccable wit. The nouveau riche are depicted as crude, spoiled, and lazy, while the aristocracy are portrayed as drunk, immature, and equally indolent. The aristocrats may wear elegant clothes, but they steal money from friends and live off smoked herring—yet their status is something the absurdly wealthy Americans covet.

Like Berlin in 1919, The Oyster Princess portrays a capital city torn from the old world order and reshaped by a new generation, including settler foreigners, whose drunken stupor spills into the streets. Money buys decadence; decadence reflects money. While the non-specific European city of The Oyster Princess lies far from Berlin itself, it inhabits the enchanted globe known as Lubitschland, capturing the vanity, lust, and simmering social climate of its time. These are the qualities Lubitsch would, just a few years later, take abroad, to convert the Hollywood industry to his own mode of expression.

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My goal is to discover interesting movies that are not already on all the "greatest movie" lists.

The Abyss (1913) - Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913) - The Cheat (1915) - Tigre reale (1916) - The Oyster Princess (1919) - Don't Change Your Husband (1919) - Erotikon (1920) - The Flapper (1920) - Foolish Wives (1921) - Madame Beudet (1922) - The Woman from Nowhere (1922) - A Woman of Paris (1923) - Girl Shy (1924) - The Marriage Circle (1924) - Flesh and the Devil (1926) - It (1927) - Italian Straw Hat (1927) - Underworld  (1927) - The Devious Path (1928) - L'Argent (1928) - Sadie Thompson (1928) - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) - People on Sunday (1930)

All films discussed in this blog are public domain and can be watched via YouTube or Archive.org

 

 

Early Italian Film: Tigre Reale (Pina Menichelli & Giovanni Pastrone, 1916)

Tigre reale is a 1916 Italian silent film, a melodrama directed by Giovanni Pastrone, starring Pina Menichelli. The story revolves around passion, seduction, and destructive love, in which Menichelli shines in her role as the femme fatale.

Giovanni Pastrone (1883–1959) was one of the pioneers of early Italian cinema. He is best known for his monumental film Cabiria (1914), one of the most important works of the silent film era. Pastrone revolutionized filmmaking, particularly by introducing technical innovations such as the camera pan (a movable camera on rails), which had a major impact on the aesthetics of cinema at the time. Cabiria was one of the first films to introduce the epic format and to address major historical themes with elaborate sets and special effects. The film tells a story set during the Punic Wars and set new standards in storytelling and visual effects. Pastrone was also a forerunner in the commercialization of cinema, helping to establish film as an art form and a medium for entertainment. His work inspired many later filmmakers.

 

Lead actress Pina Menichelli (1890–1984) was one of the great stars of Italian silent cinema in the 1910s and 1920s. She is known for her intense, passionate roles and her striking charisma, which made her an icon of the femme fatale type.

Menichelli began her film career in 1913, but her breakthrough came in 1915 with her leading role in Il fuoco, directed by Giovanni Pastrone. In this film she played a seductive poetess, and her sensual, expressive acting made her immediately famous. Her roles were often those of seductresses, women who led men to their downfall through their beauty and allure. Menichelli's image of the femme fatale made her popular not only in Italy but also internationally.

In Tigre reale Menichelli plays the role of a Russian countess who embarks on a passionate and obsessive love affair with an Italian diplomat. Their relationship is doomed from the start due to the emotional cruelty and unstable nature of the countess, who is portrayed as both irresistible and dangerous. The film shows her as a mysterious and destructive force, leading both the diplomat and herself into the abyss.

Giorgio La Ferlita falls in love with the Russian Countess Natka at a ball and is injured in a duel with a rival. After his recovery, he receives a letter in which Natka confesses her love, but she leaves. He searches for her without success and finds a new lover. Later he crosses paths with Natka, but she avoids him. She eventually invites him, but again ignores him. Only later does she tell him about her tragic past, in which she had an affair with a Polish revolutionary, Dolski, who committed suicide after their separation. Natka becomes infected with tuberculosis. She continues to reject La Ferlita, despite her feelings. Years later, she asks him to meet her at the Hotel Odeon, where she takes poison. La Ferlita rushes to her, but her husband locks them in while she dies. During a fire, they escape through the window, and Natka miraculously comes back to life.

 

The title, Tigre reale (Royal tigress), refers to the ambiguous nature of the main character: she is at once seductive and ruthless, a woman who uses her animal instincts to manipulate the men around her. It also symbolizes her uncontrollable passion and the threat she poses to her lover.

The film is a typical example of the Italian diva film style, which focuses on strong female characters, often surrounded by intrigue, tragedy and sensuality. Other famous divas from these years were Francesca Bertini and Lyda Borelli. Menichelli's intense acting and her flamboyant appearance gave the film its power and made it a success at the time.

With its beautiful cinematography, dramatic sets and Pina Menichelli's charismatic performance, Tigre reale is one of the most emblematic films of Italian silent film melodrama.

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My goal is to discover interesting movies that are not already on all the "greatest movie" lists.

The Abyss (1913) - Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913) - The Cheat (1915) - Tigre reale (1916) - The Oyster Princess (1919) - Don't Change Your Husband (1919) - Erotikon (1920) - The Flapper (1920) - Foolish Wives (1921) - Madame Beudet (1922) - The Woman from Nowhere (1922) - A Woman of Paris (1923) - Girl Shy (1924) - The Marriage Circle (1924) - Flesh and the Devil (1926) - It (1927) - Italian Straw Hat (1927) - Underworld  (1927) - The Devious Path (1928) - L'Argent (1928) - Sadie Thompson (1928) - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) - People on Sunday (1930)

All films discussed in this blog are public domain and can be watched via YouTube or Archive.org

 

Early American film: The Cheat (Sessue Hayakawa, 1915)

The Cheat is one of the earliest and most interesting films by Cecil B. DeMille (1881-1959), one of the founders of American cinema. Between 1914 and 1958, he directed 70 feature films, both silent and sound films. His later work is known for its epic scale and cinematic spectacle, but his early films also include many intimate social dramas, comedies and westerns.

[Sessue Hayakawa]

The Cheat is such a social drama and it has sometimes been called a racist film in reviews, but that is not correct. On the contrary, in The Cheat the role of the sinister Japanese character is not played by a made-up Caucasian (as was for example the case in Broken Blossoms by Griffith from 1919), but by a Japanese actor: Sessue Hayakawa (1889-1973). Hayakawa was the first Asian-American male lead in Hollywood and became a sex symbol, especially among women. He was among the highest paid actors in Hollywood for several years, starring in romantic dramas in the 1910s and early 1920s. He also founded his own production company. In the wake of rising anti-Japanese sentiment after World War I, Hayakawa left Hollywood in 1922 to work in Europe and Japan, but returned several times. He is best known for his role as Colonel Saito in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), for which he received an Oscar nomination. His minimalist acting style, in which he conveyed intense emotion through subtle eye movements, was seen as refreshing compared to the exaggerated gestures often used in silent films. In this respect, Fanny Ward, the "star" of The Cheat, goes too far in her silly overacting.

She plays Edith Hardy, a spoiled society woman who, despite the warnings of her husband Richard (Jack Dean), continues to buy expensive clothes. Richard, a stockbroker, tells her that all his money is tied up in a speculation and he cannot pay her bills until the stocks rise. Yet she even postpones her maid's salary to buy a new dress. Note the enormous, ridiculous hat she wears at the beginning of the film. Edith is also treasurer of a local Red Cross fundraiser for Belgian refugees (the film is set in the years that World War I raged in Europe). The gala ball for the fundraiser is held at the home of Hishuru Tori, a wealthy Japanese ivory trader. He is an elegant and dangerously sexy man, to whom Edith is attracted; he shows her his room full of valuables and brands one with a hot mark to show that it is his.

A socialite friend of the Hardys tells Edith that Richard's speculation will not yield any profit and offers her a better investment. He promises to double her money within a day if she trusts it to him. Edith, not wanting to wait for Richard's profit, takes the $10,000 that the Red Cross has collected from her safe and gives it to the friend.

The next day, her shocked friend tells her that his investment failed and that the money is completely lost. The Red Cross ladies expect the next day to hand over the money they have raised. Edith goes to Tori to desperately beg for a loan, and he agrees to write her a check in exchange for her sexual favors the next day. Edith reluctantly agrees, takes the check, and gives the money to the Red Cross. Shortly after, Richard excitedly announces that his investments have been successful and that they are now very wealthy. Edith asks him for $10,000, supposedly for a bridge loan, and he writes her a check without objection.

When she takes the check to Tori, however, he refuses to let her out of their "arrangement." When Edith resists his advances, he takes the brand iron he uses to mark his property and brands her on the shoulder. In the ensuing fight, Edith finds a gun on the ground and shoots him. She runs away, while Richard, having heard the commotion, rushes into the house. There he finds the check he had given to Edith. Tori is only wounded in the shoulder, not killed. When his servants call the police, Richard declares that he was the shooter, and Tori does not deny this.

Edith begs Tori not to press charges, but he refuses to spare Richard. She visits Richard in his cell and confesses everything, but he insists that she tell no one else and let him take the blame. During the crowded trial, both Richard and Tori, who appears with his arm in a sling, testify that Richard was the shooter, but they refuse to say why. The jury finds Richard guilty.

This is too much for Edith, and she rushes to the witness stand, shouting that she shot Tori: "And this is my defense." She exposes her shoulder and shows the brand mark to the courtroom. The male spectators become enraged and rush forward, ready to lynch Tori. The judge protects him and keeps the crowd at bay. He then quashes the verdict and the prosecutor withdraws the charges. Richard lovingly and protectively leads the remorseful Edith out of the courtroom.

The title "The Cheat" of course refers to Edith, who cheats on her husband, on the Red Cross and finally on her Japanese friend. Toru keeps his word and only forces her the do the same - her husband could learn from his example!

When originally released in 1915, the character of Hishuru Tori was described as a Japanese ivory trader. Japanese Americans protested the film because of its negative and sinister portrayal of a Japanese person. When the film was re-released in 1918, the character was renamed "Haka Arakau" and described in the title cards as a "Burmese ivory king." Apparently there were no Burmese in California to protest!

The film contains a major cultural error: Tori is shown using a branding iron to brand his name, in the shape of a Shinto gate, on the art works he has collected, and eventually uses it to mark Edith as his property. In Japan, however, only criminals were branded, and it is unthinkable that a collector would brand his art or other possessions. This mistake probably arose because Japanese collectors did put a red seal with their calligraphed name on paintings, as was also customary in China. Ceramics were not stamped, but stored in wooden boxes to which a paper label with the seal could be attached. But the weird idea of branding a woman as one's possession is in itself an idea that would have been worthy of a writer as Tanizaki Junichiro!

That the American men want to lynch Tori at the end of the film is not, in my opinion, a racist tendency of the film, but a realistic reflection of the racism against Japanese and other Asians that was unfortunately normal in America at that time (even marriage between whites and another race was forbidden - in 1933, large demonstrations were organized against Frank Capra's film The Bitter Tea of General Yen, in which Barbara Stanwyck plays a white woman who is attracted to a Chinese man). 

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My goal is to discover interesting movies that are not already on all the "greatest movie" lists.

The Abyss (1913) - Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913) - The Cheat (1915) - Tigre reale (1916) - The Oyster Princess (1919) - Don't Change Your Husband (1919) - Erotikon (1920) - The Flapper (1920) - Foolish Wives (1921) - Madame Beudet (1922) - The Woman from Nowhere (1922) - A Woman of Paris (1923) - Girl Shy (1924) - The Marriage Circle (1924) - Flesh and the Devil (1926) - It (1927) - Italian Straw Hat (1927) - Underworld  (1927) - The Devious Path (1928) - L'Argent (1928) - Sadie Thompson (1928) - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) - People on Sunday (1930)

All films discussed in this blog are public domain and can be watched via YouTube or Archive.org

Early Film from Russia: Twilight of a Woman's Soul (Evgeni Bauer, 1913)

Evgeni Bauer (1865-1917) was the most important film director of pre-revolutionary Russia. He made comedies, social dramas and especially psychological melodramas about love and death, often with a tragic ending. Between late 1913 and early 1917 Bauer directed more than 80 films, of which less than half have survived. He worked with the greatest actors of Russian silent cinema.

In his short career of four years Bauer made macabre masterpieces. His dramas, obsessed with doomed love and death, are admired for their graceful camera movements, daring themes, opulent sets and chiaroscuro lighting. Bauer used cinematic techniques such as flashbacks, moving cameras, close-ups, dramatic lighting effects and split-screen. He symbolically depicted the inner lives of his characters through dream sequences and dark visions. Tragically, he died in 1917 of pneumonia after breaking a leg.

His first surviving film, Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913), tells the story of a woman who murders her attacker and must build a new life when her husband leaves her. After Death (1915), based on a story by Ivan Turgenev, explores one of Bauer's favorite themes: the psychological hold of the dead on the living. In The Dying Swan (1916), an artist obsessed with the idea of ​​capturing death on canvas becomes fixated on a mute ballerina who dances The Dying Swan.

I opt for Twilight of a Woman's Soul because I am not very fond of supernatural stuff (Turgenev is in reality an ironic story) and even more so because in this film we encounter a strong woman who takes her destiny in her own hands. The film begins with a party in a lavishly decorated garden full of wealthy guests. Vera, the heroine, bored by her luxurious but secluded life, apologizes and retreats. The next day, Vera's mother invites her to go with her to help the poor. Enthusiastically, Vera jumps at the chance to do this charity work. One of the people she helps, a man named Maxim, is enchanted by her beauty. He writes Vera a letter asking her to come back to help with his deteriorating medical condition - which is a complete lie. She goes alone to his apartment, where he violates her. Afterward, he falls into an alcohol-induced sleep. While he is asleep, Vera escapes his grasp and bludgeons him to death. (Interestingly, this murder remains unnoticed by the police - could the poor just be killed off like that?)

Vera returns home, visibly shaken. She is then introduced to Prince Dol'skii. After a month, the prince declares his love for her and they kiss. However, as she kisses him, she has a vision of kissing the man who attacked her, and she runs away. Prince Dol'skii does not give up on her, however, and she eventually agrees to marry him. She decides that she must tell him her secret before the wedding, but both attempts to tell him are thwarted. At first she tries to tell him outright, but he does not let her finish and only says: "No matter what happened in your past, nothing will make my love waver." At the second attempt she writes him a letter, but he is not at home to receive it and so she burns it.

Vera and Prince Dol'skii get married. They are happy, but Vera decides that she must tell him the truth about what happened to her. Her husband reacts very badly to her confession. His love is shocked, so to speak, and he seems to want nothing more to do with her. So Vera leaves him for good and returns to her family. Prince Dol'skii starts drinking and carousing with light women to smother his sorrow. But after living like this for about a year, he can't stand it anymore and goes looking for Vera.

He hires a private detective, who discovers that she lives abroad. She has become a famous actress there. The prince leaves Russia to look for her, but after two years his search yields nothing. He returns to Russia. Sick of his gloomy attitude, a friend of the prince convinces him to go to the opera. Prince Dol'skii agrees and it is in this opera that Vera performs. He sees her on stage and immediately goes to talk to her after the performance. He begs her forgiveness and asks her to come back to him, but Vera refuses. She tells the prince that it is too late now and that she no longer loves him because of his cold reaction to her confession. After hearing this, Dol'skii returns home in mental anguish. In the last scene of the film, Prince Dol'skii commits suicide. (That is overdoing it, but every Russian story seems destined to end in death.)

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My goal is to discover interesting movies that are not already on all the "greatest movie" lists.

The Abyss (1913) - Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913) - The Cheat (1915) - Tigre reale (1916) - The Oyster Princess (1919) - Don't Change Your Husband (1919) - Erotikon (1920) - The Flapper (1920) - Foolish Wives (1921) - Madame Beudet (1922) - The Woman from Nowhere (1922) - A Woman of Paris (1923) - Girl Shy (1924) - The Marriage Circle (1924) - Flesh and the Devil (1926) - It (1927) - Italian Straw Hat (1927) - Underworld  (1927) - The Devious Path (1928) - L'Argent (1928) - Sadie Thompson (1928) - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) - People on Sunday (1930)

All films discussed in this blog are public domain and can be watched via YouTube or Archive.org

An early and fascinating film from Denmark: The Abyss (Asta Nielsen, 1910)

From 1909 until the outbreak of World War I, the Danish film industry enjoyed a brief period of worldwide triumph. This was possible in the silent film era, when there were no barriers between films from different language areas, as intertitles could easily be changed. Denmark briefly became the most important film center in Europe, and Danish films were shown in cities such as Paris, London and New York. However, during World War I, the Danish film industry lost its worldwide influence (as did the entire European film industry), and the USA, with Hollywood, took over the leading role.

By 1910, Denmark had ten film production companies, and that year Nordisk Films Kompagni, under the leadership of director August Blom, became the first major European company to focus entirely on feature films and achieve international success. With the longer films came growing artistic ambition, best illustrated by Afgrunden (The Abyss, 1910), in which the beautiful actress Asta Nielsen (1881-1972) made her breakthrough as Europe’s first major female film star.

Nielsen’s role in The Abyss defined her career, portraying a strong, independent woman who suffered tragic consequences from her own choices. Although she became the first international film star, her work was often censored for its provocative content – ​​her naturalistic portrayal was considered highly erotic. She often played the role of a seductress or femme fatale, such as Lulu in the film Erdgeist of 1923.

The film tells the story of Magda Vang (Asta Nielsen), a piano teacher who meets Knud Svane (Robert Dineen), the son of a vicar, on a tram in Copenhagen. Knud falls in love with her and has his parents invite her to spend the summer with them at the vicarage in Gjerslev. On Sunday, Magda refuses to go to church and convinces Knud to visit a circus instead. There she falls in love with the charismatic circus artist Rudolf Stern (Poul Reumert), who follows her to the rectory. At night, he enters her bedroom via a ladder to roughly take her into his manly arms and kiss her on the lips while she protests unconvincingly. Magda leaves her safe, respectable fiancé and runs away with the circus artist.

She begins the wandering circus life and, under Rudolf's guidance, becomes a gifted member of the troupe. Although this new life initially fascinates her, she eventually becomes disillusioned when she discovers that Rudolf is also pursuing other women. But despite Knud's efforts to win her back, Magda cannot leave Rudolf.

Magda and Rudolf are hired as dancers in a variety theater, where they perform a sensual dance. During the act, Magda lassoes Rudolf and dances seductively around him. However, when Rudolf pays too much attention to a ballet dancer, Magda becomes furious and starts a fight on stage, in front of the audience. This leads to them both being fired.

In order to earn their living, Rudolf forces Magda to play the piano in a band in a garden restaurant. Knud appears and recognizes her. Incognito, he asks her for a private meeting. Magda thinks he wants to pay her for sex and refuses, but Rudolf forces her to go anyway. When Rudolf arrives later and finds Magda with Knud, he becomes furious and starts beating her. In panic, Magda grabs a knife and stabs Rudolf in the chest. He dies, but her love for him remains undiminished, and in her desperation she clings to his dead body. When the police arrive, she has to be taken away by force. At the exit of the restaurant she passes Knud, but she does not notice him - even now, he doesn't exist for her.

Director Urban Gad used naturalistic settings and innovative techniques such as continuity editing. The film's most memorable scenes are Magda's sensual dance with Rudolf and the final confrontation in which she kills him in self-defense. For 1910, The Abyss is a remarkably refined work, typical of the quality films coming out of Denmark at the time, despite their sensational storylines. Although the acting is sometimes overdone and, as in many silent films, there is more running time than story, Asta Nielsen is a joy to watch. Her sultry, erotic dancing remains remarkably daring even today. Unfortunately, the only available prints are badly deteriorated in some places.

***

My goal is to discover interesting movies that are not already on all the "greatest movie" lists.

The Abyss (1913) - Twilight of a Woman's Soul (1913) - The Cheat (1915) - Tigre reale (1916) - The Oyster Princess (1919) - Don't Change Your Husband (1919) - Erotikon (1920) - The Flapper (1920) - Foolish Wives (1921) - Madame Beudet (1922) - The Woman from Nowhere (1922) - A Woman of Paris (1923) - Girl Shy (1924) - The Marriage Circle (1924) - Flesh and the Devil (1926) - It (1927) - Italian Straw Hat (1927) - Underworld  (1927) - The Devious Path (1928) - L'Argent (1928) - Sadie Thompson (1928) - Diary of a Lost Girl (1929) - People on Sunday (1930)

All films discussed in this article are public domain and can be watched via YouTube or Archive.org

 

100 Greatest Films (3): Black Book, Blow Up, Blue Velvet, Body Double, and The Bride Wore Black

In this installment: (11) Black Book, (12) Blow Up, (13) Blue Velvet, (14) Body Double, and (15) The Bride Wore Black.

11. Black Book (2006, "Zwartboek")
Paul Verhoeven with Carice van Houten and Sebastian Koch.
A movie that shows how difficult it is to distinguish truth from reality in times of war. We like to divide humanity into "heroes" and "traitors", especially after the fact, but reality is not so black and white. Realities shift all the time, and the "good guys" suddenly turn out to be traitors - and vice versa. People's actions and intentions shift and become ambiguous all the time. That is also the theme of one of the greatest Dutch novels of the 20th century, The Dark Room of Damocles by W.F. Hermans.

Black Book tells the story of Rachel (played brilliantly by Carice van Houten), a young Jewish woman in the final years of the war. It is an epic thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat the entire time - and goes much deeper than that. Rachel's parents are killed while trying to escape to Belgium, she joins the resistance movement under the new name Ellis de Vries, gets the order to befriend a German officer (played by Sebastian Koch), falls in love with him...

This short summary already shows where this movie is different. Instead of the usual stark black and white (the Nazis as inhuman beasts, the Dutch as nothing but exemplary heroes, as in Verhoeven's older Soldier of Orange), this movie paints reality as it is, in various shades of gray. There are "good" Germans, just as there are "wrong" people in the resistance.
Another theme of the movie is that war does not end when an official armistice is declared. For Rachel and her friends, the war continues even as crowds dance in victory in the streets, and indeed war seems to be the perversely "normal" human condition (we see them at the end on a kibbutz in Israel, where gunfire can be heard).

Straitlaced critics have denounced Black Book as sleazy: they object, for example, to the prison scene in which Rachel is smothered in a bucket of human shit by her own guards. But what could be more topical, given recent history? Moreover, Carice van Houten is a great Verhoeven heroine, in the tradition of Sharon Stone and Elizabeth Berkley.

This movie raises moral complexities that blockbusters don't often confront, such as the amorality of wartime events, how war criminals often escape justice, and how its heroes are often not the good guys.


12. Blow Up (1966)

Michelangelo Antonioni with David Hemmings, Vanessa Redgrave and Sarah Miles. Based on a short story by Julio Cortázar.

A movie that shows us that we cannot trust our senses. A photographer thinks he has seen something fascinating through his camera, but when he enlarges the image, it turns out to be tragic. Or is it?

Set in the swinging (but now very remote) London of the 1960s, the protagonist of this movie is a popular fashion photographer, Thomas, who lives an empty life of "sex, drugs and rock and roll". Bored with all the gratuitous sex, mindless models, groupies and lazy pot parties, he goes through the motions of his work soullessly. He would like to branch out into other types of photography, but that will not bring in the money he is making now. He happens to take pictures of a couple in the park, a woman and an older man; the woman remonstrates with him and follows him to his studio. She even takes off her blouse to seduce him and steal the movie. Thomas sends her away with the wrong part, but is fascinated by this woman, so different from the superficial girls around him.

Then, out of curiosity, Thomas enlarges the photos and in a beautiful sequence, hanging larger and larger prints on his wall, discovers that he has photographed a murder - in the grainy image he sees a man with a gun hiding in the bushes behind the couple, and the older man who was with the woman later lies prostrate on the grass. Thomas returns to the park, now at night. The mystery deepens and at the same time proves to be unsolvable, since the mysterious woman has also disappeared... but for a short time, the mystery has awakened him from his lethargy.

Antonioni filmed in a great style, with little dialog, almost telling the whole movie with the camera. At the time, Blow-Up was notorious for an orgy scene with groupies; today this is tame, but what shocks is the protagonist's cruelty and contempt for women, as shown in the way he treats his models and girlfriends, an aspect of the 60s that we seem to have forgotten.

The film ends with a nice symbolic scene where a group of students with white faces mimic playing tennis in the park – Thomas pretends he can see the ball and we hear it on the soundtrack, but it isn't there, just like the core mystery of the film.

[Based on my blog article about Classical Novels and Film Part 2]
 

13. Blue Velvet (1986)
David Lynch with Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan and Dennis Hopper.

A cult film that blends psychological horror with film noir, revealing a dark underbelly in a seemingly idealized small town, seeing something that has always been hidden.

The movie begins with images that suggest we are in an idyllic, quiet American town (Lumberton), but soon the viewer gets the unsettling feeling that this same town will be the setting for a dark scene. Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle MacLachlan) finds a human ear in the middle of a lawn near his home.  Jeffrey feels the urge to find out where this ear came from and sets out to investigate. He takes the ear to police detective Williams, whose daughter Sandy (Laura Dern) leads Jeffrey to nightclub singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini).

Jeffrey rings Vallens' doorbell, poses as an exterminator, and manages to steal her key. With the same determination as James Stewart in Rear Window, Jeffrey turns into a voyeur before the viewer's eyes: he returns to Vallens' apartment at night and hides in a closet. But it does not take long for the singer to discover the intruder, and suddenly the roles are reversed. At this moment, however, a scene follows that is as unpleasant for the viewer as it is for Jeffrey.

Dorothy receives an unexpected visit from Frank Booth (Dennis Hopper), a sadistic and foul-mouthed psychopath with bizarre sexual tendencies, who humiliates her. Jeffrey, once again hiding in the closet, watches helplessly and gradually discovers that Frank has a pathological obsession with Dorothy and has also kidnapped her husband and child. Hopper plays one of the most terrifying criminals in movie history.

Both the viewer and Jeffrey are drawn into a nightmare that makes them wonder how it is possible that cruel figures like Frank have a place on this planet. What David Lynch wants to make clear with this movie: "Nothing is as it seems, everything is an illusion." When the movie returns to the idyll in the final shots, we don't believe it anymore.

Also note the symbolism in the movie, such as the insect motif.

14. Body Double (1984)
Brian De Palma with Craig Wasson, Gregg Henry, Melanie Griffith and Deborah Shelton.

A cult film about obsession and voyeurism, it is also a conscious play on Hitchcockian conventions and an ode to the great master's famous films (such as Vertigo, Rear Window and Dial M for Murder).

Body Double follows the claustrophobic Jake Scully (B-actor Craig Wasson), a vampire movie actor who has just suffered the double disaster of being fired and finding his girlfriend in bed with another man. Scully needs a place to stay (the apartment belonged to his girlfriend) and gratefully accepts the chance to house-sit at a spectacular place in the Hollywood Hills (actually the Chemosphere on Torreyson Drive, just off Mullholland Drive, in Los Angeles). The owner is away in Europe, and the current house-sitter, fellow actor Sam Bouchard (Gregg Henry), has to leave town for a few weeks. Sam shows Scully the bonus of this place: through a telescope on the balcony you can see into the open window of a bedroom where the gorgeous neighbor Gloria Revelle (1970 Miss America Deborah Shelton) performs nightly stripteases (or so it seems).

Scully is so excited about what he has seen through the telescope that the next day he follows the woman in his car to a shopping mall and then to the beach. But Scully soon realizes that he is not the only stalker... she is also being followed by a mysterious Indian with a disfigured face.

In fact, the next night, through his telescope, he sees the Indian murder the woman with a power drill and arrives too late to save her. Scully is plunged into the chaos of a bizarre murder mystery and seeks help from dancer Holly Body (Melanie Griffith), who seems to hold the key to finding the killer (Scully has noticed that she uses the same dance routine as the victim)...

Here are some examples of how De Palma pays homage to Hitchcock:
    - At the beginning of the movie, Jake Scully is overcome by claustrophobia while filming a scene in a coffin (and this claustrophobia will return later at crucial moments), just as Jimmy Stewart suffered from vertigo in Vertigo.
    - The spying scenes with the telescope are reminiscent of Rear Window.
    - Instead of Stewart stalking Kim Novak, here Scully stalks Deborah Shelton in a shopping mall.
    - Instead of Hitchcock's camera circling Novak and Stewart, De Palma's camera waltzes around Scully and Shelton as they embrace on the beach.
    - Melanie Griffith (who gives one of her best performances in this movie) is the daughter of Tippi Hedren, who starred in Hitchcock's Birds and Marnie. Her hairstyle is the "platinum blonde" favored by Hitchcock.

De Palma's camera movements are beautiful, such as a twenty-minute, dialogue-free chase sequence, and he uses iconic Los Angeles locations. This is a great movie, but also a rather sleazy one, so the critical opinion was against De Palma when the movie came out. But Roger Ebert praised the film, giving it three and a half out of four stars. In fact, the movie developed a dedicated cult following and is still going strong today - which is right, because it really is full of tongue-in-cheek humor.

[Based on my previous blog article]

15. The Bride Wore Black (1968, La Mariée était en noir)
François Truffaut with Jeanne Moreau. Based on the novel of the same name by Cornell Woolrich.

"The Bride Wore Black is a noirish tale of female revenge made as an homage to Truffaut's favorite director, Hitchcock.

Julie, the bride of the title, is widowed on her wedding day when her brand-new husband is shot from a window. The young widow vows to avenge her husband's murder and manages to track down the five men involved. She decides to kill them one by one. Adopting a series of disguises, Moreau insinuates herself into the lives of all five culprits. Using her charms, she enslaves them and then stages their deaths. With the first three, she succeeds easily. But the fourth, a car salesman, is arrested for fraud before her eyes and taken to prison. The fifth, Fergus, is an artist who paints a portrait of her. After Fergus is murdered, she is arrested at his funeral and confesses to the four murders. In prison, she gets a job in the kitchen and looks for the opportunity to kill her last victim. The ominous score was written by Bernard Herrmann, a frequent Hitchcock collaborator.

Truffaut modified Woolrich's novel according to Hitchcockian principles: in the book, Julie's motive is not revealed until the end, and the mystery remains; in the movie, a flashback after the second murder reveals the motive, and the mystery becomes suspenseful.

The ending of the movie is also very different from that of the novel: in William Irish's work, the heroine discovers that she has killed innocent people.

The influence of this film on the screenplay of Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill films is obvious, even if the director denies it.

100 Greatest Films

100 Greatest Films (2): Ace in the Hole, Audition, Babel, Basic Instinct, and Belle de jour

In this installment: (6) Ace in the Hole, (7) Audition, (8) Babel, (9) Basic Instinct, and (10) Belle de jour.

6. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Billy Wilder with Kirk Douglas.

This is one of the nastiest movies I have ever seen - although the acting by Kirk Douglas as Chuck Tatum is superb and the message is more relevant than ever. Kirk Douglas plays a cynical, disgraced reporter who will stop at nothing to regain his job at a major newspaper - even if he has to use some creativity to manufacture the news. The movie also shows how a gullible public can be manipulated by the press (and social media, I might add).

When a local man becomes trapped in a cliff collapse while collecting ancient Indian artifacts, Tatum senses a golden opportunity to manipulate the rescue effort for publicity. He convinces the unscrupulous local sheriff to give him exclusive access to the victim in exchange for a story that will guarantee the sheriff's re-election. Although the victim could be reached in about 12 hours, Tatum convinces the contractor to drill from above instead, which will take a week and keep the news rolling for Tatum. As disaster tourists flock to the site, turning it into one big carnival, even the victim's wife (eager to leave her husband and his struggling shop and restaurant in the middle of nowhere) goes along with Tatum's plan because it finally brings in money. The site is flooded with gawkers willing to pay an entrance fee to enter the site and buy souvenirs. Of course, it all ends in disaster, because this is a true film noir.

Unfortunately for Wilder, the film was also a disaster at the box office and even critics hated it. It is only in recent decades that opinion has changed and Ace in the Hole has come to be seen as the great artistic film that it is, dealing with some unpopular truths. The film is a scathing attack by the European-born Wilder on American superficiality, the turning of everything into a "business", and the one-sided interest in sleazy "human interest" tabloid stories (something that still goes on, day after day, on all the TV networks). Stories whose staying power is manufactured
Unfortunately for Wilder, the movie was also a disaster at the box office, and even critics hated it. Only in recent decades has the tide turned, and Ace in the Hole has come to be seen as the great artistic film that it is, and one that deals with some unpopular truths. The film is a scathing attack by the European-born Wilder on American superficiality, the turning of everything into a "business", and the one-sided interest in sleazy "human interest" tabloid stories (something that still goes on, day after day, on all the TV networks). Stories whose staying power is manufactured and stretched as long as possible simply because they are scary, scandalous, or sordid, and fill the airspace until the next bad story comes along. There is a lot of talk about "fake news" in the U.S., but of course this is the real fake news. And today it is not only served up by the networks, but also by Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

7. Audition(1999)
Takashi Miike, with Eihi Shiina and Ryo Ishibashi. Based on the novel by Ryu Murakami.

This visceral shocker about a middle-aged widower in search of the perfect, obedient, traditional wife serves as a reality check on patriarchy and male chauvinism (and Western men who, based on a cross-cultural misunderstanding, believe that Japanese women, who are less verbally aggressive than women from some other cultures, are all just obedient little wives).

The movie begins as a romantic drama in which a middle-aged widower (Ryo Ishibashi), with the help of a film producer friend, holds a mock audition to find a new, young wife. Through this act of deception, he thinks he has found his ideal partner in Asami, a beautiful former ballet dancer dressed in white, who seems to be the ultimate, traditional type of wife - stylish and polite. But behind her calm exterior lies a world of fear and terror, as the middle-aged lover discovers too late. The autobiographical details of his potential bride don't add up, and he learns that people in her life have a habit of disappearing. The moment of truth for the viewer comes when Asami, who has been waiting for his call for several days in an apparently bare apartment containing only a large canvas bag, smiles coldly as the bag suddenly convulses violently and swings across the floor. The final descent into a grotesque nightmare is absolutely stomach-churning - especially the ending is painful to watch.

Japanese director Takashi Miike's film critiques the power imbalance that allows men to "audition" beautiful young women in search of a fantasy combination of strength and servitude. Because Aoyama is ultimately a rather sympathetic character, the sadistic revenge that Asami takes is all the more difficult to stomach, but Aoyama's own complicity must be acknowledged.

This movie also shows that Japanese women are not the obedient little housewives that Western cultural fantasy and Japanese male expectations make them out to be. That Japanese women are "submissive" or "obedient" is a fiction created by the fact that they are less verbally aggressive than women from many other cultures, as is Japanese culture in general. But in their hearts, they know exactly what they want and how to get it. Of course, it would be silly to draw another comparison with the character of Asami in the movie, but it may be the necessary jolt to help us change our conservative view of Japanese women.

[Based on my article on Cult films]

8. Babel (2006)
Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu, with Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Koji Yakusho, Adriana Barraza and Rinko Kikuchi.

A film that emphasizes the interconnectedness of our ever-shrinking world ("When a butterfly flaps its wings in China...") and the need for mutual understanding. In the movie, Morocco, America, Mexico and Japan are connected by the thoughtless act of a child.

Inarritu has created a movie with three interlocking stories. A freak accident brings together people from different continents and cultures. Pitt and Blanchett play American tourists in Morocco. They are plunged into tragedy when Blanchett's character is hit by a stray bullet on a tour bus in the desert - two small Moroccan boys were just trying out a rifle recently bought by their father (a poor farmer who wanted the gun to shoot the wild animals decimating his herds), but now they are being hunted as terrorists.

In the U.S., the couple's Mexican nanny takes their children across the border for a family wedding when she cannot find a babysitter for the infants. When she returns to the U.S. with her Mexican nephew as her half-drunk driver, she is chased by the Border Patrol and gets lost in the desert.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo, a young deaf and mute Japanese schoolgirl, Chieko, is struggling to come to terms with her mother's suicide. Her businessman father (who was the original owner of the fatal rifle he gave to his local guide after a hunting trip in Morocco) is being questioned by the police, causing his daughter to become increasingly disturbed. The confused girl experiences such rage and frustration that she rips off her underwear and begins exposing herself to boys in a crowded restaurant. The father struggles to overcome the emotional distance that separates him from his daughter.

The movie can be harrowing at times when painful scenes are played too long. The director shot the movie like a documentary. At every turn, the barriers of language - but more importantly, the barriers of stereotypes and prejudice - lead to tragic results. Everyone tries to behave well, but is hampered by misconceptions or simply bad luck. Inarritu shows us that people, no matter where they come from, are trapped by circumstances, power relations, and cultural codes.    

9. Basic Instinct (1992)
Paul Verhoeven with Sharon Stone, Michael Douglas and Jeanne Triplehorn.

This neo-noir thriller offers a chilling glimpse into the depths of the human soul.

A police detective investigating the brutal murder of a former rock star becomes embroiled in a torrid and intense relationship with the beautiful and mysterious prime suspect. Sharon Stone is the perfect femme fatale, both in the mental and sexual games she plays with her interrogators. She is an ice-blonde, bisexual mystery writer, and Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Eszterhas keep the tension at a boiling point throughout, even during the love scenes, which have a violent edge. The movie's most infamous scene, a police interrogation in which Catherine makes drooling idiots of her middle-aged male captors by revealing that she is not wearing underwear when she crosses her legs, became an iconic shot. There is also a strong sense of doom as we see Michael Douglas mentally disintegrating and slowly approaching the flame of the dangerous seductress.

Such a mix of perverse sexuality and bloodshed was not uncommon in European thrillers such as those of Dario Argento, and Verhoeven had made one himself in his excellent Dutch film The Fourth Man. Basic Instinct is a great "neo-noir" thriller that warns us not to let strong emotions lead us astray - at least a modicum of clear and rational thinking is required (which seems increasingly difficult in today's world).

[Based on my article about Neo-noir films]

10. Belle de jour (1967)
Luis Bunuel with Catherine Deneuve, Jean Sorel and Michel Piccoli. Based on the 1928 novel Belle de jour by Joseph Kessel.

An impeccable Parisian upper-class woman, dissatisfied with her married life, has sadomasochistic fantasies and starts working part-time in an exclusive brothel, satisfying the fetish whims of her clients... What, in the hands of another director, could easily have turned into a sleazy comedy, is transformed by Bunuel into something elegant and clean, with a philosophical theme: the difficulties that come from not being able to express who we are.

Belle de Jour is Catherine Deneuve at her classic best: beautiful, elegant, cold - and lustful. She plays an upper-class Parisian housewife, Séverine Serizy, whose porcelain perfection hides a fractured soul. We see this at the beginning of the movie, when her husband orders her to be tied up and whipped by two coachmen. Of course, this is not really happening, but just a perverse daydream - one of the many masochistic fantasies Séverine suffers from. Her husband Pierre is a diligent and kind-hearted surgeon, but the frigid Séverine is unable to feel any passion for him - even though she loves him dearly. And the spoiled lady has too much time on her hands...

To make her bondage fantasies more concrete, she begins to act them out by secretly spending her idle afternoons working in a boutique brothel. This, by the way, is what the movie's title refers to: "Belle de Jour" is a daylily (literally, "daylight beauty") that blooms only during the day, but the same French term can also refer to a prostitute whose trade is conducted during the day. So while Séverine remains chaste in her marriage, in the afternoons, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m., she satisfies the bizarre fetishes of the men who patronize Madame Anaïs's high-class brothel.

Her clients include a fat industrialist, a professor who dresses up in role-playing costumes and then abuses her, and a duke who likes to perform a funeral scene in a coffin. But she also meets a mean-looking young gangster (Pierre Clementi) whose cruelty and ugliness she rather likes, and then things go horribly wrong: he falls in love with her and follows her home... Séverine used to be completely bottled up, which is shown in Deneuve's excellent performance (how she stands, where she looks), but the longer she works as Belle de Jour, the more we see her warming up and becoming more confident. This makes it all the sadder when it all comes crashing down.

Deneuve is the ideal actress for this complex study of female psychology. Though the character she plays revels in debauched desires, she retains a cool, inscrutable dignity, dressed as she is in the most chic Yves Saint Laurent.

This is the best and most iconic movie Bunuel ever made. It won the Golden Lion at the 1967 Venice Film Festival.

[Based on my previous article]

100 Greatest Films

100 Greatest Films (1): The Age of Innocence, Aguirre, Air Doll, An Autumn Afternoon, Angels and Insects.

In this first installment: (1) The Age of Innocence, (2) Aguirre, (3) Air Doll, (4) An Autumn Afternoon, (5) Angels and Insects.

1. The Age of Innocence (1999)
Martin Scorsese, with Michelle Pfeiffer, Daniel Day-Lewis and Winona Ryder. Based on the novel by Edith Wharton (1920).

A wonderful story of unfulfilled love set against the backdrop of gentile upper-class society in 19th-century New York, where the outwardly polished manners were in sharp contrast to the harsh, hidden machinations. The title is an ironic comment on this.

Newland Archer is engaged to marry the beautiful but superficial May Welland - who, like him, belongs to the creme-de-la-creme of late 19th-century New York society - but falls in love with her cousin, the Countess Ellen Olenska, who has recently returned to her native New York, scandalized by a failed marriage to a European aristocrat. But the Countess is also a breath of fresh air in the stifling, rule- and duty-based New York society, and she makes Archer dream of greater things than just a conventional life. But the society around them closes ranks to block their budding relationship...

Scorsese emphasizes in the film how these upper class people are characterized by their possessions and the food they eat. The Victorian rooms are crammed with furniture, paintings, lamps, plants, feathers, flowers, and the food, filmed from above on expensive china, is gorgeous to behold. The movie was shot mostly in traditional homes in Troy, New York.

Most importantly, Scorsese uses the medium of film to capture and magnify the implied eroticism in the unfulfilled relationship between Archer and Ellen Olenska - caressing the folds of her dress, kissing her shoe, or inhaling the scent of a parasol he believes to be hers are moments of incredible sensuality. Scorsese aptly demonstrates that the most powerful love stories are those that are never consummated, and the sexiest movies are those in which the lovers keep their clothes on.

The performances are perfect: Michelle Pfeiffer shines with an inner light as Ellen Olenska, Winona Rider brings out May Welland's girlishness as well as her cunning, and Daniel Day-Lewis looks both handsome and intelligent as Newland Archer. Scorsese has made an elegant and intelligent adaptation of Wharton's novel that is wonderfully uncharacteristic of his usual work.

[Based on my blog article on Classical Novels and Film)

2. Aguirre, the Wrath of God (1972, Aguirre, der Zorn Gottes)
Werner Herzog, with Klaus Kinski.

The story of an expedition of Spanish conquistadors through the jungles of Peru and down the treacherous Huallaga River in 1560 in search of the legendary land of gold, El Dorado (a fictional story invented by the natives to lead the invaders to their doom). The rude adventurers, led by Don Lope de Aguirre (Klaus Kinski), are driven headlong into destruction by their hubris and greed.

The theme of the voyage across an unknown river in a threatening nature, from which invisible enemies besiege the boat, is of course borrowed from Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Aguirre manipulates and instills fear in the group he is supposed to lead. One by one, the expedition members die of heat, food shortages, power grabs, and various illnesses until Aguirre is left alone. Kinski plays Aguirre with breathtaking ferocity, like a force of nature ready to strike. He perfectly embodies the violence and greed with which Europe subjugated much of the world in the colonial era, but also the arrogance and hubris.

The movie was shot in Peru. It's the first of several Herzog feature films in which the actual, arduous process of making the film (on location, in the middle of nowhere, and with the help of the locals) mirrors the plot about swashbucklers rushing into the untamed wilderness in search of greatness. Aguirre/Kinski, in fact, functions as a loose stand-in for Herzog himself.

3. Air Doll (2009, Kuki Ningyo)
Hirokazu Kore-eda, with Bae Doona. Based on the manga by  Yoshiie Goda.

A Pygmalion-like story about a life-size inflatable sex doll that develops consciousness and turns into a real woman. In the worst case this would have been a raunchy sex comedy, but in Kore-eda's hands it became a meditation on what it means to be human.

The doll (called Nozomi, "Hope") belongs to a grumpy, middle-aged waiter who has dressed it up in a maid's costume and engages in endless conversations with it after he returns home at night. The reclusive man apparently prefers the plastic doll to a real woman because he doesn't have to communicate with another living being. He takes her for walks and sits with her on a bench, the same long scarf around both of their necks - the height of loneliness.

But one morning (when the waiter is at work) the doll magically comes to life ("finding a heart") and - dressed in the fetishistic maid's uniform her owner bought for her - starts walking around the neighborhood, an old part of Tokyo. By mimicking her neighbors' speech and actions, she learns to fit in. She even gets a job in a video store, makes various friends (giving the director the opportunity to show more lonely lives, such as an old man who always sits on a park bench, a single father of a young daughter, a middle-aged hotel clerk who worries that a younger woman will soon replace her, etc.), but above all, develops a mind of her own. The first part of the movie shows us how the living doll learns about the new world around her. Her wide-eyed wonder at everything in the world is beautiful to watch.

Eventually, she learns what it means to be human, and we begin to care about who Nozomi is. She starts to hate her sex slavery with the waiter and falls in love with a shy young guy who works in a video store (the waiter eventually buys a replacement doll). Unfortunately, she is made of plastic, which is easy to rent. When she loses air, the young clerk blows her up through the valve in her belly button, which turns into a real love scene. However, the air doll doesn't learn that an unavoidable element of life is dying, which will lead to a critical mistake...

The living air doll is played by the perfectly cast Korean actress Bae Doona, who brings a lot of depth to her difficult role. The fluid cinematography is by Taiwanese cinematographer Ping Bin Lee. A wonderful movie, sophisticated and sensitive, focusing on the loneliness of urban life and the question of what it means to be human.

4. An Autumn Afternoon (1962, Sanma no Aji)
Yasujiro Ozu with Shima Iwashita, Chishu Ryu, Keiji Sada and Mariko Okada.

A gentle domestic drama about middle-class family life, with a central story about the dilemma of whether a young woman of marriageable age should marry or stay home to care for her widowed father. The film was made at a time when young women in Japan were urged to marry before 25, but rather than preach social convention, Ozu emphasizes the naturalness of the cycle in which children leave their parents and strike out on their own, even if they would prefer to stay in the warm, old nest.

Chishu Ryu plays a widower, Hirayama, who lives with his daughter (Shima Iwashita) and a younger son. The daughter Michiko is a sassy, modern type who tells her father and brother in no uncertain terms that there will be no dinner if they come home late. A far cry from the demure Setsuko Hara of the late 40s and 50s, Ozu reflects the changes in society.

The oldest son, played by Keiji Sada, is married to Akiko (Mariko Okada). They live in their own apartment (in a danchi, an apartment complex of which many were built starting in the sixties) and struggle to make ends meet, as the young couple is heavily into consumer goods - currently they want both a refrigerator and golf sticks, and dad is always good for a loan. Akiko is also an outspoken modern woman, played by Mariko Okada in the same role as in Ozu's Akibiyori. She keeps her husband on a tight leash, also financially. This last Ozu movie is really very funny.

Hirayama is an auditor in a chemical company. He has two drinking buddies, Kawai (Nobuo Nakamura) and Professor Horie (Ryuji Kita) - the latter has just remarried to a young woman who could be his daughter, which leads to jokes about certain proto-Viagra pills he supposedly takes - and we see the inside of many bars in this movie.

The "Mama-san" (Kyoko Kishida, the heroine of Suna no Onna) of a favorite watering hole resembles Hirayama's late wife. Hirayama was the commander of a ship in the war, so she plays on his nostalgia by making him listen to the "Warship March" (a piece that later became a perennial favorite in pachinko halls). But now, in 1962, Hirayama jokingly concludes that it is good that Japan lost the war: the country is peaceful and prosperous after all.

Hirayama and his two friends invite their former teacher "The Gourd" (Eijiro Tono, known for his role as Mito Komon in period films) to dinner and then bring him home, where they meet his daughter Tomoko (Haruko Sugimura), who has become an embittered old maid. Hirayama wants to spare his own daughter this fate, and since Michiko is already 24 (women should marry before the age of 25, was the traditional philosophy in Japan), he starts looking for a husband for her. Both father and daughter hide their true feelings about this marriage.

Michiko likes one of her father's colleagues, but they discover that he is already engaged - she has waited too long. So an omiai (arranged marriage) is arranged with someone anonymous to us as viewers - we don't even see him in the movie - and the last image of Michiko is in her colorful wedding kimono with the traditional tsunokakushi headdress.

After the ceremony, Hirayama goes back to drinking (Mama-san sees his morning clothes and asks if he has been to a funeral. "Something like that," he replies) and comes home a little tipsy. He feels his age and the loneliness that comes with it. Marrying off his daughter is like losing the war again, so maybe some good will come of it.

The English title of this movie may sound elegiac to us, but two things should be noted here:
1) Autumn in Japan is not a season with sad or dark connotations; on the contrary, it is a time of blue skies when the sweltering heat of summer finally gives way to pleasant coolness. It is a time when people get active again with sports and hiking and when the appetite returns.
2) The Japanese title of the movie is literally "The Taste of Sanma," where "sanma" is a type of mackerel (not mackerel itself, which is saba; sanma is usually translated as "Pacific saury"). This inexpensive fish is a delicacy in September, and that is the season to which the movie refers. In fact, there is (even) more eating and drinking in this "food movie" than in other Ozu films. We also see Ozu's own favorite dish, tonkatsu (deep-fried pork), pass by. Sanma, however, is missing from these menus - it was a simple fish for home cooking and thus probably hints at the "home atmosphere" Hirayama will miss when his daughter leaves him. On the other hand, this movie is full of sake drinking, and the French gave it the title "The Taste of Sake (le gout du sake)"!

Bright color photography by Atsuta Yuharu. Ozu died shortly after completing this movie, on his 60th birthday. His grave at Engakuji in Kamakura bears no name - only the character mu ("nothing"). An Autumn Afternoon is the final masterpiece of a truly great director, a summation of his entire career. A serene movie full of understatement, it shows us that in our lives, too, we should quietly follow the cycle of nature.

[Based on my previous blog article]

5. Angels and Insects (1995)
Philip Haas with Mark Rylance, Patsy Kensit, and Kristin Scott Thomas. Based on the novella "Morpho Eugenia" (included in Angels and Insects) by A.S. Byatt.

A story of incest and inbreeding in 19th-century English aristocratic society that serves as a warning against cultural inbreeding.

A Victorian naturalist, William Adamson, has returned from the Amazon jungle to his native England, where he is at the mercy of a wealthy patron, Sir Harald Alabaster. He has lost all his possessions and most of his insect specimens in a shipwreck, but Sir Harald kindly hires him to classify his chaotic natural history collection and gives him refuge at Bredely Hall. William also falls in love with the eldest of the three Alabaster daughters, Eugenia, with the speed of a man who has spent ten long years in the jungle. He is of a different (=lower) class than the aristocratic Alabasters, who form a close-knit family, but - also to his own surprise - he is welcomed into their fold and into the arms of the coldly beautiful, very blonde and very white-skinned (yes, "alabaster") Eugenia. This is despite the vehement opposition of one of her half-brothers, the brutish Edward.

Thus William becomes an awkwardly grafted addition to the wealthy family. Of course, things are not what they seem, and just as in original Victorian fiction, a hasty marriage is never a good idea, as there are usually some skeletons in the closet. The only person at Bredely Hall with whom William gradually develops a real friendship and has meaningful conversations is another hanger-on, the assistant governess Matty Crompton, a mysterious dark fairy. William begins a study of ants with her, and they even write a book together on the social system of the local ant colonies. Interesting parallels are drawn between human society and the insect world. It is also from her that William finally learns the shocking incestuous secret of the Alabaster family - and realizes his own painful lack of insight and perception.

The movie features stunning "insect colored" costumes and is probably the only movie in which a woman believes she is being attacked by large moths. It was shot on location at Arbury Hall, Nuneaton. The movie is rather understated and quietly acted and moves at a deliberate pace, but that suits the subject. Of course, the issue is much larger than just a case of incest in an English family: the film shows the dangers of inbreeding, not only in the biological sense, but even more in the cultural sense, when the ranks of a small in-group are closed and people from other cultures are treated as outsiders. It is a regression to a state of tribalism. Brexit, of course, is a recent example of this unfortunate tendency.

100 Greatest Films