Thursday Minute
No. 170 | September 30, 2010

Late for the Show

Our theme this week
Actors with posthumous nominations for Oscars

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   James Dean (1931-1955):  East of Eden, Giant
Tuesday         —   Spencer Tracy (1900-1967):  Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner
Wednesday    —   Peter Finch (1916-1977):  Network

Massimo Troisi (1953-1994):  Il Postino (The Postman)

Massimo Troisi began as a comic actor, working in cabarets, radio, and television, then started making films in the 1980s, as a director and actor.  He worked with big names of Italian cinema such as Ettore Scola, Marcello Mastroianni, and Roberto Benigni, yet at least in the U.S., few people would have heard of him had he not starred in Michael Radford’s 1994 film, Il Postino (The Postman).

Troisi plays Mario Ruoppolo, the poor son of a fisherman on a small island off the coast of Italy.  He takes a job as a postman for a single customer, famed Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (the always wonderful Philippe Noiret), who moved to the island with his wife to escape political trouble at home.  Each day Mario pedals his bicycle up a steep dirt road to deliver the mail.  At first the poet has little interest in the simple, humble postman, but Mario shows great interest in Neruda and his poetry, and eventually the two strike up a friendship.  Mario, who has fallen for the village beauty, Beatrice (Maria Grazia Cucinotta), would like to have Neruda help him win her affections.  They talk about poetry and metaphors and love, and without any pretension, some of the more profound things in life.  Mario learns from the poet, and more surprisingly, the poet learns from Mario as well.

Il Postino, like Mario himself, appears simple yet is deeply affecting.  The film is filled with timeless lessons and characters not to be forgotten.  Miramax, in its heyday, promoted the movie and won it a wide audience.  At the time, it became the top-grossing foreign-language film in U.S. cinema history.

The heartbreaking tale was made even more poignant by the story of Massimo Troisi himself.  In poor health during filming of the movie, he postposed heart surgery until after the production was completed.  The day after filming wrapped, he suffered a fatal heart attack. 

The film went on to earn five Oscar nominations, with two for Troisi:  for acting in a lead role, and a shared honor for adapted screenplay.

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Il Postino (The Postman) (1994)
Michael Radford, director
Diablo Cody (screenplay), writer
Antonio Skármeta (novel); Furio Scarpelli, Giacomo Scarpelli (story); Anna Pavignano, Michael Radford, Furio Scarpelli, Giacomo Scarpelli, Massimo Troisi (screenplay); writers
Franco Di Giacomo, cinematographer
Trailer

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Il Postino (The Postman) (1994)
Metaphors

 

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Quote of note
Mario:  I can’t explain it—I felt like—like a boat tossing around on those words.
Pablo:  Like a boat tossing around on my words?
Mario:  Ay.
Pablo:  Do you know what you’ve done, Mario?
Mario:  No, what?
Pablo:  You’ve created a metaphor.
Mario:  No.
Pablo:  Yes.
Mario:  No.
Pablo:  Yes, you have!
Mario:  Really?
Pablo:  Yes.
Mario:  But it doesn’t count  because I didn’t mean to.
Pablo:  Meaning to is not important.  Images arise spontaneously.
Mario:  You mean then that—for example, I don’t know if you follow me—that the whole world—that the whole world, with the sea, the sky, with the rain, the clouds—
Pablo:  Now you can say, “etc., etc.”
Mario:  “Etc., etc.”  The whole world is the metaphor for something else?  [Pause]  I’m talking crap.
Pablo:  No, not at all.  Not at all.
Mario:  You pulled a strange face.
Pablo:  Mario, let’s make a pact.  I’ll have a nice swim and ponder your question.  Then I’ll give you an answer tomorrow.
—Mario Ruoppolo (Massimo Troisi), Il Postino (The Postman) (1994) 

…58…59…60.

Thursday Minute
No. 160 | September 16, 2010

It Was a Very Good Year … 1957

Our theme this week
Notable films of 1957

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Sweet Smell of Success
Tuesday         —   The Bridge on the River Kwai
Wednesday    —   12 Angry Men

Wild Strawberries

To make the point that 1957 was a very good year for movies, I might have started and stopped with Ingmar Bergman.  With more than 60 directing credits to his name, he was a prolific filmmaker and two of his best films were released during the year.  Both were landmarks of postwar art house cinema and helped cement Bergman’s status as one of the great artists of the medium.  On another day, I’d have picked The Seventh Seal to feature (and someday, I will).  Instead, for now, let’s take a look at Bergman’s second film of the year, Wild Strawberries.

No one ever accused Bergman of being easy.  His films, by and large, are serious, unsentimental affairs.  They demand a lot from the audience.  The specter of death is never far away, and so it is with Wild Strawberries, which (relatively speaking) may rank as one of Bergman’s warmest and most humane films, and perhaps his most satisfying.

The film stars one of the founding fathers of Swedish cinema, Victor Sjöström, the longtime director and actor in his final role.  Sjöström plays Professor Isak Borg, a man in his late 70s who takes a long road trip with his daughter-in-law to return to his old school, where he is to be awarded an honorary degree for his work as a doctor.  The trip gives Borg a chance to examine his life, and through a series of encounters, nightmares, and excursions into his past, he sees the failings of his relationships and the limits of his ways.  Borg has been a cold soul, missing out on many of the joys that life may have offered him.  He’s at the end now, too late to change anything, but he does finally reach an understanding, and acceptance.

Wild Strawberries is an allegorical film, expressionistic at times, perhaps more than it needs to be.  More than anything, though, it’s the story of a life, of a man who at last gets an honest look at his past, and who finds disappointment, but also more.  That’s something we all can learn from.

A local note
If you’re in Los Angeles, or plan to be, this week, you have a chance to catch the Bergman retrospective at LACMA.  Screenings run through Saturday, with The Seventh Seal and Fanny and Alexander among the films still on tap.

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Wild Stawberries (Smultronstället) (1957)
Ingmar Bergman, writer-director
Gunnar Fischer, cinematographer
Victor Sjöström, Bibi Andersson, et al.

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Wild Stawberries (Smultronstället) (1957)
Dream Sequence

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Bergman’s Dream (short)
By P.S. Dean
Excerpt from The Magic Lantern, Bergman’s autobiography
Clips from Bergman films

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Quote of note
Borg:  What is the punishment?
Alman:  The punishment?  Well, I guess it’ll be the usual.
Borg:  The usual?
Alman:  Yes.  The punishment is loneliness.
Borg:  Is there no way out?
Alman:  Don’t ask me.  I don’t know anything about these things.
—Isak Borg (Victor Sjöström), Sten Alman (Gunnar Sjöberg), Wild Strawberries (1957)

…58…59…60.

Thursday Minute
Entr’acte | September 2, 2010

“Dream Lover”

from Chungking Express

One more week of musical selections before we return to regular features.  This time around, a variety of songs that make for some memorable movie moments.

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Chungking Express (1994)
by Wong Kar-wai, director
“Dream Lover”
Cantonese cover of “Dreams” by the Cranberries
Dolores O’Riordan, Noel Hogan, songwriters
Faye Wong, singer

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…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 113 | June 8, 2010

Derrick and the Dominoes

Our theme this week
Films about oil, and what it does to people

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   Giant (1956)

The Wages of Fear (1953)

A classic of European cinema from the 1950s, The Wages of Fear won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, the Golden Bear at Berlin, and Best Film at the BAFTA Awards.

An oil well in South America catches fire, and the company that runs it—a U.S. corporation called SOC (those initials ring a bell?)—hires four men to transport nitroglycerin to the well site for the fire to be extinguished.  The men—two Frenchman, a Dutchman, and an Italian—had been stranded in the isolated village of Las Piedras.  The job is their ticket out, and they take it, lured by the promise of high pay—$2,000 per driver.  It’s a perilous journey, across mountain roads in poor condition, with cargo that’s extremely hazardous.  Will the trucks make it?  Will the men survive?  Those are the questions in doubt.

The movie is a thriller, in part, with French director Henri-Georges Clouzot squeezing maximum tension from every scene, every twist and bump of the road.  There’s also a political angle.  The oil company exploits the local workers, then when the accident occurs, they hire nonunion foreign nationals, with little regard for their safety.  Clouzot’s handling of the men’s fate is a not-very-subtle statement.

The acting includes some notewothy portrayals, including Yves Montand as the playboy Mario, and Charles Vanel as ex-gangster Jo.  The director’s wife, Véra Clouzot, who appeared in three of her husband’s movies (most notably, Diabolique), plays one of the local women.

The success of the film led to a couple of American remakes, including Sorcerer, in 1977, directed by William Friedkin and starring Roy Scheider.

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The Wages of Fear (Le Salaire de la Peur) (1953)
Henri-Georges Clouzot, director
Trailer

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Sorceror (1977)
Remake of The Wages of Fear
William Friedkin, director
Roy Scheider

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Quote of Note
O’Brien:  The hell with the union!  There’s plenty of tramps in town, all volunteers.  I’m not worried.  To get that bonus, they’ll carry the entire charge on their backs.
Bradley:  You mean you’re gonna put those bums to work?
O’Brien:  Yes, Mr. Bradley, because those bums don’t have any union, nor any families.  And if they blow up, nobody’ll come around bothering me for any contribution.
—Bill O’Brien (William Tubbs), The Wages of Fear (1953)

…58…59…60.

Tuesday Minute
No. 108 | June 1, 2010

“Summer” Movies

Our theme this week
“Summer” movies (not soon playing at a theater near you)

Featured this week (theme introduction)
Monday         —   The Endless Summer (1966)

Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)

Ingmar Bergman directed comedies.  (Who knew?)

Bergman had been been making movies for about a decade when he wrote and directed Smiles of a Summer Night, the film that first won him wide international acclaim.  He had already made Summer Interlude (1951) and Summer with Monika (1953), so something about the season seemed to inspire him.  In later years he directed The Virgin Spring (1960), Winter Light (1962), and Autumn Sonata (1978), proving he could make a film for any time of year.

Smiles of a Summer Night may be Bergman at his lightest, though it’s hardly without suffering.  There’s more of that here than you’ll find from other directors aiming for tragedy.  The film is set in the bourgeois society of turn-of-the-century Sweden, with husbands and wives and mistresses and lovers all looking for romance and finding mostly trouble.  The women are scheming and the men full of vanity.  The action culminates in a summer weekend in the country, with eight of them coming together, both friend and foe.  Bergman steers just an inch short of catastrophe, while the women conspire to lead the men through their grand designs, as the couples find the solution to their dilemma by swapping partners.

The cast includes several legends of Swedish acting.  Eva Dahlbeck plays the actress Desirée, the once and would-be lover of Fredrik Egerman, a lawyer, with Gunnar Bjornstrand as the male lead.   Ulla Jacobsson plays Fredrik’s young virgin of a wife, and Harriet Andersson the young and world-wise maid.  One of the highlights of the film is Mrs. Armfeldt, played by Naima Wifstrand, who has one sharp line after another.  When her daughter, Desirée, claims, “For once I was truly innocent,” she replies, “It must have been early in the evening.”

Bergman was a prolific film director and playwright, and along with Smiles of a Summer Night he made a handful of comedies.  This was probably his best known, and sweetest.  (Stephen Sondheim adapted the story for his 1973 musical, A Little Night Music.)  Bergman’s success at Cannes—the film won a prize for “best poetic humor”—helped save his career, which soon would take a different and darker path.

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Smiles of a Summer Night (Sommarnattens Leende) (1955)
Ingmar Bergman, director
Eva Dahlbeck, Naima Wifstrand
 

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Smiles of a Summer Night (1955)
Ingmar Bergman, director

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Quote of Note
Helen:  No decent girl lets a boy kiss and maul her the very first night they meet!  I suppose it’s your Swedish blood in her.  I’ve read about how the Swedes bathe together and—and have trial marriages and free love.  I’ve read all about that.  Anything goes.
Ken:  So, now you hate the Swedes.  How many outlets for your hate do you have, Helen?
—Helen Jorgenson (Constance Ford), Ken Jorgenson (Richard Egan), A Summer Place (1959)

…58…59…60.