Man With a Movie Camera (1928, Russia, Vertov)

Ben Begins:

You just know this film rocks! It's so cool. But let me get this out of the way to begin with. I was definitely influenced by the soundtrack, which I really dug. A few months ago, the boys and I watched Metropolis and halfway through I finally turned off the sound; so inappropriate and bothersome did I find it. This time, I felt the music managed both to support the visuals, providing some suggestion of continuity and punctuation, and be independently interesting in its own right. I guess I'm not the only person to feel this way. Is this the score I heard?

2002 – A version was released with a soundtrack composed by Jason Swinscoe and performed by the British jazz and electronic outfit The Cinematic Orchestra (see Man with a Movie Camera (album)). Originally made for the Porto 2000 Film Festival. It was also released on DVD in limited numbers by Ninja Tune. This DVD edition is currently very much in demand and goes for prices higher than the other DVD versions.

Turning to the film itself, it's remarkable for being socialist realism and avant-garde at the same time. Mind you - and contrary to ideologically convenient historical ignorance about the Soviet Union - in 1929 the two had yet to be dogmatically divided. Less than an ongoing meta-statement about itself so prevalent in high modernist art, MWAMC seems to me to be a Brechtian distancing effect. This is generally associated with a humorless tone put to the service of a radical critique of something bourgeois. But MWAMC is just the opposite. It is an upbeat affair that almost has the feeling of a promotional tourist document.

And "document" is the right word, because the film is not propagandist cultural advertising. It is a documentary that just happens to also document how it made itself and sometimes even how it was received by an audience as it was being made, (at least I think that is portrayed).

There's no accounting for all the wild and wacky techniques employed in the film except to conclude that the film-maker was enraptured with all the latest options and didn't want to neglect a single one. Part of the tremendous creativity of the film has to do with this cornucopia of gimimcks. But they transcend mere gimmickry by being presented as just some of the wonderful mechanical achievements of the society as a whole. The man with the movie camera in MWAMC is part of the great industrial division of labour that includes all the other spinning tops and groovy hardware. Again, the artist is not presenting himself outside of his art or anything else. He is rather in the thick of it, documenting his work along side that of his peers in all their diverse vocational and recreational settings.

The absence of nature in the film is revealing. Any sort of uncultivated landscape is not in the program. Even rural areas are not present and animals are minimally shown. It's full-steam ahead with optimistic sidewalks and the goodness of engines. Looking at MWAMC in 2009, I felt like Chuck Heston in the Omega Man watching Woodstock. It's hard to fathom now how the film takes progress for granted and is absolutely confident that it is contributing to The Great Society, (to borrow the title of the domestic policy initiative of Lyndon Johnson).

Having recently seen the downer that is Koyaanisqatsi, I can attest to it being pretty much the antithesis of MWAMC and for me a much lesser artistic achievement. It's not just that I'm an old commie. It's that KOY becomes increasingly didactic and intelligence-insulting whereas MWAMC never abandons its bordering-on-surrealist playfulness to preach on a soapbox. Hey, I also liked the music that I'm guessing Swinscoe composed for the 1929 film a lot better thant the piece Glass wrote for the 1982 film - so there.

And Dan:

In the delightfully inventive Man With a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov is obviously far more interested in the formalist aspects of filmmaking than he is in towing the ideological line (something that would get him in all sortsa trouble soon after this film's release).  The film is, as you note, a very upbeat affair, not at all the sort of tone we normally associate with the supposedly dour Russians. There is some attempt to be responsible to the party line in that the film does show us real people doing real work in the real world of Odessa and Moscow. And this is a near-pristine depiction of such life, as there doesn't seem to be too much grit under the fingernails of all these hard working folks.

And Vertov clearly sees himself as one of those folks, as the film has a wonderful meta-quality to it, showing us the filmmaking hard at work setting up and executing his shots, just like the people and machinery he so lovingly photographs for our entertainment. His lengthy array of elaborate, intricate and otherwise dazzling cinematic techniques are a wonder to behold, infusing the film with a real joyous sense of discovery, the same sort of exuberance he is trying to capture in his shots of people in their work environs. As you say, the film is pure optimism, as there is nary a discouraging word (metaphorical or otherwise) to be found in MWAMC; this is the Soviet Union on the move, progress being placed at the service of the people.

There is also a constant sense of motion, as Vertov really hauls his ass around the cityscapes in search of the next cool shot. The film's energy is a key aspect of its optimism, a dawn to dusk challenge to show us a day in the life of a Soviet urban dweller,  as we race through the streets towards a brave new socialist future, Vertov is doing his damnedest to keep up and share it with us. Vertov's obvious pleasure at the things he can do with a camera are also intended to mirror the workers enthusiam for their various endeavours, and usher in a sparkly mechanically-driven future. Further, the scope of the film may appear somewhat limited (a day in the life of a futuristic Soviet city), Vertov has his eyes on something a little grander as well. In juxtaposed sequences, he shows a couple registering to marry, and another about to divorce, then childbirth (with a bird's eye view of the event at that) followed by a funeral. Vertov is trying to capture a lifetime in a day.

Vertov declared that it was his goal to make films so engaging and exciting out of the real world that it would lead to the elimination of all non-documentary filmmaking. While he may have come up a few yards short of that goal (and really, what was he thinking?) that's not to fault him for trying. Man With a Movie Camera is a dizzying, dazzling piece of filmmaking.
 
Here's an exerpt from the film:
 

Ordet (1955, Denmark, Carl-Theodore Dreyer) 

Also: check out our review of Carlos Reygadas's Silent Light for more discussion of Ordet.

Dan Gets the Ball Rolling:

Ordet ("The Word") is, of course, a masterpiece, and all the praise it has received over the years is well-deserved. The film is based rather loosely (Dreyer only used a fraction of the original's dialogue) on a stage play written in the 20s by Kaj Munk, a Danish pastor killed by the Nazi's, and rather than shy away from the story's theatrical origins, Dreyer embraces them. The film is clearly "stagey" in its extensive use of interior sets and pointed blocking which allowed Dreyer to employ a number of long takes, as well as some exquisite deep focus black and white photography to highlight a series of terrific performances, and cast the differences of outlook in starkest relief. The conflicts, both internal and external, focus largely upon matters of faith, as characters struggle to deal with their differences of belief (one is an atheist, another believes he is Jesus of Nazareth) when an impending marriage forces them to assess their relationship to the metaphysical. Also, the film's deliberate pace encourages immersion in the conversation and develop thoughtful responses to the issues raised.

The Danish setting is brought effectively to bear on the story, as the ragged countryside has an alien and wretched feel to it. Characters and sheep make their way through the dunes, while we catch only snatches of conversation, never clear on where they are coming from or where they going. The community is likewise hostile and vaguely exclusionary, drawing metaphysical lines in the sand based largely upon their religious beliefs (or lack thereof.) And it isn't just that divisions occur along religious or class lines; the central family is rent from within by their conflicting values. Father (Morten) is at odds with son, brother with brother; Ordet distills the religious conflicts of a nation to that of a single family. On the one hand, we have Johannes, the deranged son who believes he is Jesus Christ, driven mad by his study of Kierkegaard, the philosopher whose derision towards ye of little faith Johannes clearly took to heart. On the other, we have Mikkel, who is devoid of faith of any sort, despite being married to Inger, a woman whose faith is unquestionable, and whose daughter, Maren, shares her mother's passionate beliefs. The third son, Anders, loves the daughter of the local tailor Peter, whose beliefs are opposed by Morten, putting the union of the young couple in doubt, even as Anders contends that their love should transcend all differences.

Denmark has a long history of religious struggle, as traditional Christianity has waned in the face of secular thinkers while fundamentalist sects have arisen to fill the void. While not necessarily unique to Denmark, there is something about watching these characters on their restless journey for answers in this inhospitable landscape that has an appropriately austere and angst-ridden appeal. Some of Lars Von Trier's films, such as Breaking the Waves and Dogville (set in America, true, but it is clearly informed by Danish xenophobia as well) confirm that things have not necessarily changed all that much. In Ordet, the characters struggle to express their faith by contrasting it with others; in this context, the exclusionary nature of religious belief, the us versus them-ness of this pursuit, is carefully divined. Further, many who use their beliefs to divide us from one another, such as Morten and Peter, are ultimately shown to be lacking, Morten being essentially faithless and Peter both venomous and intolerant. The film's interesting shadings are also expressed in the character of Mikkel, the agnostic, who is also  one of the most morally ethical characters in the drama.

The Word of the film's title is that of God. And, to be more specific, God's word is Faith. So naturally, it is the one character of real faith whose fate must test the beliefs of the others. It is about as clean as a Christian resurrection fable can get, really, but no less potent for it. The film's many conversations, debates and arguments have us weighing our own beliefs, encouraging us to clarify where we sit on the faith-doubt continuum, but there is no waivering by Dreyer at the film's climax. Ordet is a film of absolute conviction, a work of real belief. In this era of irony, cynicism and existential anomie, Ordet's faithfulness is both old fashioned and invigorating. Even to your humble narrator, a leery sceptic from way back, Ordet is something of a cinematic miracle. While I no more believe in the flm's resurrection than I believe in the Biblical one, Ordet manages to replenish my belief in something. Through the power of its convictions and the brilliance of the filmmaking, Ordet rejuvenates my faith in the power of film.

Then Ben:

"The conflicts, both internal and external, focus largely upon matters of faith." Largely? Was there a fight in this film over something else that I missed? As far as I could tell, all of the anguish coming down the pipe was flowing from the tap turned by Kierkegaard. Some of the social contests may seem to fall a drop removed from this source, although hardly, but all of the psycho-dynamics are dripping directly into the well of Protestantism-in-crisis.

This essential orientation in Ordet is crucial to grasping the commonality of all the various approximations to faith in the community. I have no religious faith myself. Nevertheless, the message of transcendence delivered by the film only makes conceptual sense, in my view, when we depart from any sort of secular, literally mundane notion of community and enter instead into a genuinely spiritualist take on the social totality. Let's call this the "true church."

With all due respect, I find that your approach to this lacks clarity when you say, for example, that "Ordet distills the religious conflicts of a nation to that of a single family." In the first place, this is simply not the case. The distilled unit is actually the village. But the deeper issue is not this or that geographic entity or class-stratified societal structure or even local personal divisions. What is at stake is the brotherhood of believers as the Platonic highest reality.

The abstract, absolute and universal bond of faith is served up by Ordet on a concrete, limited, particular plate; as any Christian theology must be, what with all of it being microcosmic recapitulations of the necessity of immanent God becoming Jesus incarnate, with the proof of this being The Resurrection. Weighed on the scales of drama, the first four Gospels of The New Testament are no slight documents. Resurrection is one hell of a third act magic show. The remarkable thing about Ordet is that it not only re-stages this old play upon which the true church was founded, it does so in the face of modern empiricism and it wins the staring contest.

The resurrection in Ordet is not one hell of a third act magic show. It's a miracle! A real-for-true miracle. And it is witnessed by all collectively. It instantaneously removes all individualistic doubt, all Protestantism-in-crisis separation from others and from God. Not a private conversion no better than a UFO sighting. This is a complete public or genuinely (small "c") catholic transformation. Not a matter of inner soul-searching, meditative contemplation, a-rational intuition or hyper-rational idealism. The pure faith of the people is restored by way of their common sense. This is the great power that charges Ordet - sense so common, it belongs as much to fools as to wise men, as much to children as to adults, even as much to crazy suspects as to cool calculators. A miracle levels the playing field. Damn straight.

At this level, Ordet is a "progressive" film compared to Dryer's Joan. The pinpoint concentration of Joan resides on her being a quasi-divine Saint whose passion is a pretty fair surrogate for that of The Christ going into The Crucifixion. The strength of Ordet has to do with it being based on an authentically human scale, with all the diversity and frailties this entails. The sheer existential force of Joan is downright terrifying and as a work of cinematic art its power is beyond compare. But the force of Ordet cannot be denied exactly because its metaphysical mandate is achieved by way of a miraculous empirical demonstration that any skeptic would have to register with his own eyes and by way of a community reunification that even a cynic would want to call home. Born again indeed.
 
And Dan:
 
To clarify, when I say the religious conflicts of a nation are distilled down to that of a family, it passes THROUGH the village on the way down to the family, if you get my drift. The family is the FINAL level of microcosmic distillation, so to speak. The buck stops there.

Finally, for those who are interested in connecting the dots review-wise, here is where you'll find our discussion of Carlos Reygadas's riff on Ordet,  2008's Silent Light.

Straw Dogs (USA, 1971, Sam Peckinpah)

Ben Begins:

I revisited Straw Dogs. I had wanted to see it ever since I was a kid and saw the controversy it generated on a TV talk show addressing violence in contemporary cinima. (The other film under discussion was Clockwork Orange). Finally got to Straw Dogs about ten years ago. I wasn't too impressed by it then and tried to steer Jacob away from it this time around. I was wrong. Very powerful and genuinely disturbing. Hoffman is excellent, as he always was back then. Big surprise though - Susan George, really good. And her character is complex. Which brings me to the director/screen writer. Pauline Kael famously called him a fascist and this is misapplied. Still, it's easy to understand the notion that Straw Dogs is a pean to primal power as symbolized by a man's passage to Maleness. Personally, I think Peckinpah is more profound and less offensive than this. He doesn't have a critique to offer, but his observation is not that of a fetishistic voyeur. This is to suggest that Straw Dogs is a genuine horror movie; i.e., a work of realism and not myth-making. The two-dimensional, sinister backwater village (a cliche town from the US South tranposed to the English countryside) is poetic licence, the necessary horror story context. But the psychological dynamics within individual characters and between them is as gritty as gritty realism gets. And the violence - and sex mixed up in it - is not some trite action fun. It's actual ugliness that must be taken seriously.

And Dan:

I have always liked Peckinpah, and Straw Dogs is certainly among my favourite Peckinpahs. He is a man's director, no doubt, and Straw Dogs has more than a little to say about how the loss of masculinity in contemporary society can lead to all sortsa violence/mayhem/social discord when one attempts to reclaim it(particularly it in a world where it is no longer valued.) And while famous for his willingness to depict gruesome acts of violence on screen, what makes him really important is his unflinching depiction of the consequences of such violence (for even clearer evidence see The Wild Bunch). As such he's far from being a fascist; in fact, I'd say he's even a tad progressive. I own, but have not yet seen, a little known Peckinpah called White Dog, which is apparently a pretty pointed parable about racism in America that was misunderstood by the studios and never given a proper release (the premise, as I understand it, has the titular albino canine trained to attack only people of colour).

Then Ben:

Yeah, after I wrote you, Jacob told me that you told him we should check out The Wild Bunch. I am aware that his international reputation was established with this film at the end of the 60s but I've never seen it. Until this moment, I've never been too interested in Peckinpah, stupidly closed-minded against him actually and for such a silly reason too.


Remember the "Tennis Anyone" parody of Peckinpah by Python? I saw this before I had ever even heard of him. Then, a short time later, I learned of Peckinpah's existence from that TV talk show about violence in movies I mentioned previously. In my defense, I was just a kid taking all of this in and mostly stoned at the time. (On the other hand, what better existential-aesthetic leader than Monty Python?)

I did see The Getaway back in the day and thought it was mighty cool. But I didn't know it was Peckinpah until years later and even today I'm not sure the main thing for me wasn't just my desire to fuck Ali Macgraw. (Still unsure. But just for the record, even then I recognized she was no thespian.)

I have a vague memory of being bored by Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, wanted to check out Dylan and found him the most boring thing in it. Again, didn't know it was Peckinpah. That's about it. So, yes, The Wild Bunch.
 
Here's the trailer for Straw Dogs:
 

Stroszek (Germany, 1977, Werner Herzog)

Ben Begins:

So the film is just getting underway and immediately I'm wondering if it's a documentary or what because I noticed from the credits that the guy is playing himself and Errol Morris is mentioned and besides, the whole thing is sorta verite... but not!


What can I say? How can such a seemingly nothing story, such a mundane slice of life, how can it in the end gain such narrative momentum, human passion and philosophic depth? How? Herzog, that's how.

Stroszek is another quirky masterpiece, complete with a truck going around in circles and chickens scratching out the absurd meaninglessness of life. Lots of great non-acting acting by actors and acting acting by non-actors. Lots of dull cinematography occasionally punctuated by a staggeringly unusual and arresting shot. Strange beauty drawn out of otherwise ugly or at least plain people and places. And finally, just in case we missed how "other" our hero and his pals are, we are made to enter the culturally designated zone of the grotesque, the realm of the abnormal outsider dialectically at the center of the human condition, the freak show; in this case, a twadry tourist trap featuring imprisoned poultry performing acts of nature perverted into anthropomorphic feats for anthropocentric entertainment. Why not ride a ski-lift to your doom during the off-season? It is a tribute to the communicative power of the film that Max knew the protagonist was a dead man the second he got onto that contraption, said so out loud.

Everything unravels so tragically - it's comic. What else could have happened? The players were so naive and fundamentally innocent. Of course, this is their hamartia. They are such stupid, loveable victims of themselve. As are we all. The whole pitiful version of the American Dream. And yet it's clear at the same time that Herzog loves the United States and it really does represent a momentary fresh start. That the new beginning proves to be false is realism reminding us that it is impossible to be born again. But more than the well-known truth that we can run but never hide from ourselves, the film demonstrates what it is to stop running and find ourselves. So much for enlightenment. So much for progress. So much for the New World. Not since reading Kafka's Amerika have I encountered such a comedy on this topic.

Is it too nasty to say that Jarmusch, Kaurismaki and quite a few others have been remaking Stroszek their whole careers? Except Jarmusch and the rest don't have the stomach for it. Jacob flashed on Midnight Cowboy and Five Easy Pieces and I can see why, but these are even further removed from the reality presented by the entropy master than are the works of Jarmusch and the rest.

Herzog is hardly original in his outlook - although he is very original when it comes to what he looks at, the subject matter to which he is drawn - but his philosophy is actually quite a common type of morally informed negation. Call it compassionate nihilism. The amazing and brilliant thing about Herzog is the pure poetry he creates in his films. Really, the man is a poet. But such weird poetry!
 
And Dan:
 
Herzog jokes that Errol Morris has never forgiven him for making this film in his own backyard (Plainfield Wisconsin, home of serial killer Ed Gein, upon whom Psycho's Norman Bates and Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were both patterned) because he will now never be able to make this film, but let's face it. Stroszek is the best film that Jim Jarmusch, not Errol Morris, never made. The characters in this most peculiar and wonderful film consistently strike a Keaton-esque stoneface while absurdity, horror and cruelty unfold around them. Part of the reason for this must be found in Herzog's decision to hire to many locals to play both key and supporting parts in the film, whether they be prostitutes or car mechanics, bankers or policeman, and what is often described as naturalistic acting is really amateuristic inability to effectively emote, which is most certainly the case from time to time in Stroszek. Oddly enough, it works in the film's favour, as the character's stoic response to all levels of pain and degradation, whether psychological or systemic, add to Stroszek's weirdly mid-western otherness.
 

Speaking of which, I must acknowledge the eccentric work of Bruno S., fork lift driver, self-taught musician and survivor of various mental instutions, who had first worked with Herzog in The Enigma of Kasper Hauser, a film he wrote for Bruno in four days. Herzog uses a number of details from Bruno's life in Stroszek, while also filming several early scenes in Bruno's own apartment, all of which surely must have enhanced the authenticity (if not the quality) of Bruno's performance. Bruno's work in Stroszek affected even more than his debut performance as the enigmatic one. In Kasper Hauser, Bruno's depiction of a feral man is engaging in a quirky, Rousseauvian noble savage sort of way, but the character always remains otherworldly, almost saintly in his forbearance and kindness in the face of all forms in inhumanity. In Stroszek, Bruno is definitely playing a character rooted in this earth. He feels pain, anger, lust and hunger. This is no angel. This is a man, and Bruno, for all his oddball mannerisms, captures that certainty with a performance of peculiar power. Stroszek's confusion and disillusionment as he awakens the illusion that is the American Dream is convincingly and painfully portrayed by Bruno. It is a nuanced and heartbreaking performance.
 

As for the film's Herzogian elements, there are long quiet stretches in the film where we are allowed to consider what is happening, to whom and why; this does not mean we come to any satisfactory answers (far from it, in fact), but perhaps that is one of Herzog's many points. We are as befuddled and uncomfortable as Bruno, strangers in a strange land, trapped by the machinations of a system we don't understand. And when Bruno and his neighbour Scheitz set off to find some answers to the causes of political and economic oppression that has lead to their woeful state, things don't get any better. Poor Bruno has moved from a land where they beat you physically to one where they assault you spiritually. Which is worse? Both, that's which. For everyone, the world's problems run too deep, and these marginalized, damaged characters cannot find their feet in a world spinning just  bit to wildly out of control, a world that punishes its weakest members rather than nurtures them.
 

The film's imagery is unforgettable--even if Herzog rips himself off more than once, borrowing from Even Dwarves Started Small in particular, with the ever-circling truck and the dancing chicken--and the message decidedly pessimistic. And yet, there is an undeniable wackiness, and off-kiltered and straight-faced sense of silliness in the face of the most absurd, the most painful elements of this world is reminiscent of, and in many ways one-ups the films of Jarmusch and Kaurismaki.

Stroszek is a little seen, little known giant gem of a movie.


Here's the crazy chicken dance: for y'all:

Come and See (Russia, 1985, Elim Klimov)

Ben begins:

I did take your advice. Jacob and I watched Come and See Saturday night while Max was at a slumber party. I believe he could have handled it. I say this not to be a dickwad about you recommending that he not view the film. My purpose is to indicate that I did not find the film THAT powerful.

I'm not sure why. It may turn out that it takes a while to sink in. There is definitely a thicker aesthetic density to it than most films and this coupled with the sheer heaviness of the events depicted makes Come and See difficult to assimilate. It won't surprise me if down the road I ask to borrow it again in order to reflect on certain aspects of it, that the film will haunt me.

This possibility entertained, something about the overwhelming quality of the film was for me in the end affectively disfunctional. It is technically excessive. Perhaps the easiest way to convey my sense about it is to mention that I initially flashed on Tarkovsky's Mirror but this gave way to Tarr's Satantango. It's all just a bit too much. In particular, the soundtrack, a deeply disturbing multi-layered texture in its own right, over-powered the film's mise-en-scene. Indeed, my problem with the film may boil down to this, although the hyper-realism of the cinematography and the deep-mask acting are also candidates. I understand that the world becomes for the protagonist an almost surreal experience as he is taken to the very edge of his sanity by terror and we are submerged vicariously by the film into this mental maelstrom. Much of this interiority of the character is depicted by what we hear in the film juxtaposed against the barbaric carnival of the visual images that display the external world gone mad. The weight of all this is crushing to the point that eventually I started to experience the technique directly. That he literally ages right before our eyes and that his face takes on frozen registrations of the horror, this is already seriously strong theatre and the audio underneath it takes it to another level that finally felt like another level too much. Or was this intellectual flight on my part when confronted by emotionally unbearable art? Again, I entertain the possibility.

Thematically, I would have to propose that Come and See is a tremendous achievement and must be ranked among the best war films. One thing is for certain, it would make one hell of a provocative double bill with Tarantino's Inglorious Basterds. The all-important scene in Come and See when the boy finally shoots his gun, not at a flesh-and-blood person but at a photograph, not at any ol' person but THE symbol of the cause of the war and sign of evil, not to engage in what is actaully happening in the present but to prevent it from happening at all by running the film of history backwards... but ultimately not to fire at the face of the infant Hitler, not to be able to rewind real time, not to be able to escape from the here and now, not to be able to disengage from what is actually happening but to take political responsibility for your actions in the existential thick of it; and by association for the audience, not to be able to disengage from the facts of history - is not this all-important scene the radical antithesis of Tarantino's entire movie?
 
And Dan:
 

Title from comes from the Book of Revelations "And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see. And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth."
 
Based on the Nazi occupation of Beloruss in WWII, Come and See is one of the harshest movie experiences of my young (heh) life. That said, there was a point in the film's second half where I felt like I had been bludgeoned so thoroughly that there was nothing the film could do to me anymore. I don't think that this sort of desensitization quite works to the film's benefit, benumbed as I became to the horrors that surrounded the protagonist as the film reached its climax.

Despite these complaints, there is no doubt that Come and See is a real horror show, a film that takes us from youthful exuberance, as the teenaged Florya excitedly searches for guns so he can join in the fight, through disappointment, disillusionment, despair and, ultimately, disintegration. It is a helluva journey, told with with brutal bluntness and numbing, unflinching realism.

Some of the film's early scenes are almost a reverie, as teenage Florya's (Aleksei Kravchenko)
experiences with the Soviet partisans are weirdly reminscent of passages in Tarkovsky's Ivan's Childhood, particularly when Florya is left behind as a reserve and wanders the forest weeping his misfortune, and later as he and the villagers struggle through the bog in their flight from the Nazi invasion. The lyricism of these sequences are psychologically valid, and encourage us to identify even more closely with Florya's character. This, of course, makes us feel his terrible fall from near-grace all the more profoundly.

Once the German's make their inevitable appearance on the scene, the film makes an abrupt left turn at Albuquerque. We aren't in Kansas anymore, Toto. The Nazi's aerial assault is accompanied by a devastating bombardment that causes Florya to go temporarily deaf, while subsequent images of the brutalized citizenry make him (and us) wish he was blind as well, which further invites us to consider the terrible irony of the film's title. Do we really want to bear witness to this?

Well, we are given little choice in the matter, as Florya's descent into Hell continues apace. The viciousness and relentlessness of the Nazi's invasion makes the cause of Florya and the partisan's feel inevitably hopeless, which does soften the blow a bit, as we find ourselves out of emotional necessity stepping back from our intimate connection to Florya. While there appears to be no way out for him, this is not true of the audience, and the bludgeoning we take at the hands of the filmmakers may be historically accurate, and, given the level of horror brought to this world by the Nazi's, completely necessary, that does not mean an audience will necessarily go along for the ride when the destination is so clearly without hope or redemption.

I felt violated by the end of Come and See, but unlike your similar reaction to Lars Von Trier's AntiChrist, I can see that there is a greater cause afoot here. While director Klimov can be forgiven for driving the point home with the sort of mercilessness that forces us to reflect upon the consequences of the Nazi's inhumanity to humanity, von Trier has no such larger concern with which to distract us from his viciousness.

The Killing (1956, USA, Stanley Kubrick)






Ben sed:

So this is the reason we went to Pic-a-Flic in the first place. Jacob was curious to see this early Kubrick. Have you seen it? In case not, allow me to label it a Noir from 1956, which is interesting in itself because that genre was by then just about done. In retrospect, this can be seen in The Killing which adheres to Noir conventions only in part. Certainly the whole criminal rough-and-tumble of Noir is happening, as is the wise-cracking dialogue and the b&w use of shadows and such that give the genre its name. On the other hand, the formalism of the narrative and the tone of the third person voice-over give the film a feeling of realist detachment that will become much more standard in the decades to come, eventually infusing television police procedurals as well. Indeed, at times The Killing smacks of a certain corny style that is exemplified by the likes of Jack Webb and Quinn Martin. At the time, however, The Killing would have been hardcore stuff. There are no romantic flourishes. In short, it's already Kubrick. Everything is laid out with ruthless storyboarding logic and this gives the film a sort of passionless power. Or to get at it another way, there's a fair bit of humor in The Killing but its black to be sure and mostly funny for chess players, for lack of a better way to put it. As I know Sterling Hayden only from Strangelove and Godfather - Jesus, who needs more on a resume? - I enjoyed seeing him at an earlier stage in his career in a leading role; you know, like seeing Fred MacMurry in Double Indemnity or something.

And Dan:

I have seen it--I own the damn thing--and I really dig it. As you say, real Kubrick. Funny, hard-nosed, smart. I really liked the way he edited some of the sequences too, though I can't remember exactly which ones since it has been awhile. Noir it most definitely is, though the crime caper element means it could also be considered a hybrid of sorts. It is influenced by some of the French films of the period by Melville and Dassin, I think, which is intersting cuz they were clearly riffing on the American films in the same genre, but adding their distinctly Euro-decadence to the mix. So, like Ford influencing Kurosawa who then influences Leone, we have a cinematic cultural phenom.


And Hayden's really cool.  He has a fascinating personal history, being a war hero who ran was an undercover agent who ran guns to Yugoslav partisas to fight the fascists in Croatia. Won a Silver Star for his heroism, and had a deep admiration for the communist partisans, briefly holding a membershp in the party. However, he ended up ended up co-operating with the HUAC, and  even hough the people he fingered were apparently all already known to the committee, Hayden admits in his autobiography that he hated himself for naming names.

His transformation from matinee idol to character actor began once he returned from the war, and by the time he made The Killing, his screen persona as a very tough dude was well established due to numerous appearances in both films noir and westerns like Johnny Guitar and Asphalt Jungle. His most famous work was to come, of course, in Godfather, but more significantly, as the deranged villain Gen. Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove.

As for The Killing as an example of the auteur in pupae state, as you note, there is plenty of classic Kubrick on display in this early effort. Yes, he makes use of many of the conventions of the caper and noir flick, including voice over narration, nail tough criminals, and a bitterly ironic ending, but the film is infused with some nice Kubrickian flourishes, including an attention to detail, a challenging and sometimes non-linear narrative and the cool detachment of the camera work, that keep the audience just far enough outside of the characters that we are confronted by our own sense of inevitable anomie when the final twist arrives.

Then Ben:

I should have figured you had seen it, what with Kubrick being the auteur who stole your cherry.


If I had to pick one term to decribe the emotional characteristic of Noir I would pick "cold sweat." So Kubrick should be a natural for the genre. And he is - almost. It's the same as always with him. In The Killing he's all over the "cold" part but the "sweat" part isn't all there. It's a lustless business.
 
And Dan:
 
If ever an American belonged in Britain, it's he. Isn't their national motto "No Sex Please, We're British"?
 
Then Ben:
 

No Sex Please, We're British is a British comedic play written by Alistair Foot and Anthony Marriott and first staged in London's West End in 1971. It was unanimously panned by critics, but still ran for nearly a decade to packed audiences. It did not share the same success with American audiences, running for only 16 performances on Broadway in early 1973.


Turns out the Yanks need their dicks yanked. And Noir is as American as apple pie.
 
And Dan:
 
Yeah, but it took the French to point it out to them. That's gotta gnaw at 'em.
 
 

Here's the trailer for The Killing: