So, last time I was writing about movies I pretty much love unconditionally. This time, not so much. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoy the reflections. Remember, I'm putting an asterisk next to the titles of movies I'm watching for the first time for this project.
Ah, here it is: the first movie of the list that I haven't seen previously. And... I like it. Not love, but like. Here's the thing: Raging Bull is one of those films that New Hollywood was so fond of making back in the '70s—let's call it a stylistic character study, where the movie's interests lie almost entirely in the twin peaks of cinematic craft and the titanic personality of its lead character, to the exclusion of all else. And while I can't deny the considerable strengths of any of those films, I also can't help but admire them from a distance rather than truly embrace them. Such is the case with Raging Bull. It's a beautifully shot movie with plenty of cool cinematic tricks (more on that in a second), and De Niro is mesmerizing to watch, but aside from that, I had a hard time getting into it. Maybe the blame is the slack plotting, which kind of lumbers from one year to the next without much more driving it than the self-destructive urges of De Niro's Jake LaMotta. Which is fine—a movie doesn't have to be a narrative powerhouse to be good. However, it's not just the narrative that makes the movie feel a little slack; almost every scene not centered around a boxing match felt kind of meandering to me. I know I might be losing some film geek street cred here, so now that I've mentioned the fights, let me go out on a positive note: those fight scenes are incredible. And not because they're violent, although oh boy, are they ever. The cinematography and editing surrounding the boxing just feels so electric, using slow-motion, framing, negative space, and lighting in a way that makes each fighter's movements seem simultaneously ferocious and poetic. A fantastic example of this poetry comes early in the movie in what is maybe my favorite shot in the whole thing: when a chair is thrown into the ring, the camera follows its arc through the air, and at the apex of its flight, the chair is high enough for the boxing action to fall below the frame of the shot, making the chair seem suspended, surrounded only by the blackness of the arena ceiling. It's a strikingly gorgeous moment of abstract imagery, and I've never seen anything like it. Seriously, scenes like that one make the whole movie worth watching. As for the rest, though, maybe I need to give the film some time to sink in, because I'm missing something.
After my kinda-sorta critique of Raging Bull, I'm a little worried about going after another sacred cow, but in the interest of journalistic (bloggeristic?) integrity, here it goes: I don't care for Singin' in the Rain. I know, I know, I'm the worst. It's not the movie's fault—not exactly, anyway. In fact, if I'm trying to be objective (whatever that means), I have to admit that it's actually a pretty good movie. The problem is that I'm just not a big fan of movie musicals. If I see musicals live on a stage, I love them, but there's just something lost for me once they're filmed. Whereas stage musicals feel real and close and engaging, I feel sort of distanced from movie versions; they feel flat and fake, even when (as is the case with Singin' in the Rain) it's obvious there there are real, impressive performances unfolding right in front of my eyes without any cinematic trickery. I honestly think it's the lack of environmental noises in movies—the total curation of sound design that edits out the incidental stomps, clicks, rustles, and creaks that characterize live performances. You can't hear Gene Kelly's feet slam on the ground unless the sound engineer wants you to hear it. I watch Singin' in the Rain, and all I can think is how much better this would be if I were seeing it in person. Don't get me wrong: there are movie musicals I like (and at least one of those is coming up in the next few entries on the list), but Singin' in the Rain is not one of them.
I don't know if I've ever seen a movie more in evidence of the phrase "They don't make 'em like they used to" than Gone with the Wind. And I mean that in both the positive and negative senses of the expression. First of all, for all my griping about the bloated length of modern blockbusters, they certainly don't make mainstream movies 230 minutes long anymore. And thank goodness. Let me say this once and for all: if your movie is 230 minutes long, it's probably too long [1]. That said, Gone with the Wind is definitely an epic in the grand tradition of Old Hollywood that, for all its excesses, has a breathtaking scope and majesty to it that most modern movies can't hold a candle to. It helps that it's gorgeously shot; the visual motif of silhouettes against a clouded red backdrop is fittingly iconic, as are the scenes of the sack of Atlanta. For all the advances in movie possibilities that modern special effects have brought us, there's still a grandeur to these "cast of thousands" scenes that feels irreplaceable by any sort of technology. Another thing "they" don't do anymore: make movies with this level of casual racism. It's such a common criticism nowadays that I almost didn't mention it, but seriously, Gone with the Wind's depiction of slavery as idyllic is horrifying and toxic. The problem isn't necessarily that all the slaves in the film are happy—I'm not saying that black slaves never showed happiness in real life [2]—but that this movies doesn't seem to have any sort of understanding that slavery was a very bad thing is a huge, huge issue. Heck, the film (in addition to the characters) feels nostalgic toward slavery. Thanks, revisionist history. Make no mistake, this movie is a revisionist fantasy of the old South in the same way that depictions of the Middle Ages as some golden age of high chivalry are of medieval England. Gone with the Wind's glasses are practically opaque with all the rose-coloredness. Still, accepting all those significant flaws (and don't get me wrong: those are super significant flaws), I found the film at least a little rousing. The movie works in two modes (the battle-torn loss of innocence in sections before and immediately after the intermission, and the Mad Men-esque domestic drama of cruel people sniping each others' marriages to pieces that fills out the movie's final 100-ish minutes), and I'm not convinced that those two modes actually cohere into a thematic whole, but there's a lot of great, rich stuff in those two parts. Not that any of that makes the horrible racism okay. But Gone with the Wind's merits are also considerable. They don't make 'em like they used to indeed.
I got a little rambly this time, so sorry for that. Not sure how long it will be until I post again (Lawrence of Arabia is coming up, which is another four-freaking-hour epic—not sure how many of these I can take in quick succession), but it should be sometime next week. Until then!
You can read #1-3 in the series here.
Update: you can read the next three, #7-9, here.
1] I say "probably" because I don't want to rule out the possibility that I'll see a movie that length that justifies its runtime. It's unlikely, given my preference for movies under two hours, but I guess I shouldn't make blanket statements like that. Not yet at least.
2] Though who are we kidding: there's no way slaves were that happy, ever, and there's no way that slavery (i.e. the owning of another human being) is ever anything but awful, even at its most genteel.
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