Cinema Bestius: Psycho

At the time of its original release, one critic called Psycho, "a blot on an honorable career.” Most critics at the time were either unimpressed or openly hostile to the film. When it emerged as one of the biggest hits of the decade, many critics changed their tune… to something with strings.

#8 – Psycho

Psycho may be the film your Pope has seen the most times. During my tenure teaching high-school film classes, many other films on the syllabus came and went, but Psycho always remained. I used to joke with my students that it was Illinois State law: a teacher had to screen Psycho in any basic film survey course or risk fine and imprisonment. There were semesters where I would see Psycho four times a day. There’s a recipe for a happy, healthy life. I got to know the film… intimately.

The Plot In Brief: Marion Crane (Janet Leigh) meets for a secret tryst with her lover Sam Loomis (John Gavin) over a long lunch hour. Both are frustrated because financial circumstances will not allow them to marry. Back at the office, Marion brazenly steals $40,000 and sets off to share it with Sam. Tiring after a long night of driving, Marion decides to stop at a roadside motel to get a proper night’s sleep. The proprietor, Norman Bates (Tony Perkins) seems like a nice enough fellow, but he harbors many secrets.

Psycho is a film of many firsts: the first time Paramount vetoed a Hitchcock project (he wound up financing it himself with Paramount only distributing); the first time that Hitchcock worked with a low budget, using his television series crew; the first time a major star was dispatched halfway through a film; the first time a flushing toilet was shown on film; and the first time this level of violence was ever shown or suggested. It was also the first time audiences were required to watch the film from its very beginning—Hitchcock instituted a policy that no one was to be seated after the first ten minutes. Disappointed latecomers had to wait for the next screening, which led to big lines outside the theater and much interest from passersby.

At its core, Psycho is about loneliness. We witness the chance meeting of two impossibly lonely people and no good comes of it. Characters are vulnerable when alone: Marion in her small shower, Detective Arbogast sneaking back into the house alone. Loneliness leads to the grave. The film whispers that human connection is important; there is safety in numbers. The sheer number of characters in the police office at the film’s conclusion supports this. In the film’s famous last shot, Norman is still alone. Psycho is the story of a character so lonely, he allowed another person into his life in the most unconventional way imaginable. One of Hitchcock’s neatest tricks was marketing this serious meditation on loneliness and despair as a quickie exploitation horror movie.

Three years ago, I wrote an appreciation of Tony Perkins’ performance for this site in which I stated,

“I am impressed by all of Perkins’ line readings, but I think the pièce de résistance may be what he brings to one of the film’s simplest lines: ‘She needs me.’ Think about those three words—say them aloud. Most of us would emphasize the word ‘need,’ wouldn’t we? ‘She NEEDS me.’ Yet Perkins emphasizes the word ‘me’: ‘She needs ME.’ There is something so uncanny about that reading, so right for the material – it speaks volumes about the complicated relationship between Norman Bates and his mother. The character of Mother is not defined by her need; she is defined through Norman, and Perkins was astute enough to puzzle this out and manifest that through his line reading.”

This column is timely because an interesting new documentary premiered at the Sundance Film Festival just days ago. According to The Hollywood Reporter, “78/52 is an in-depth examination of the iconic shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho, which required 78 setups and has 52 cuts. The shot-for-shot breakdown comes from writer-director Alexandre O. Philippe, who interviewed filmmakers like Guillermo del Toro, Bret Easton Ellis and Karyn Kusama about the lasting impact of the sequence that pushed the boundaries of chaste American filmmaking.”

We can all look forward to that! So take a shower, acolytes, I am taking all of you to the MOVIES.

For almost 30 years, I would spend an entire class period analyzing the famous shower scene, freezing the frame on a VHS tape and lecturing about camera angles, technique, and the film’s production history. After Hitchcock’s death, Saul Bass, who designed the film’s opening credits and is listed as “pictorial consultant,” claimed that HE (not Hitchcock) had directed the iconic shower scene. That was bunk. No less an authority than Janet Leigh—who, after all, was IN THE SHOWER the whole time, insisted that no one directed her and the scene but Hitchcock.

Legend has it that, when the scene was edited, Hitchcock showed it to the Production Code Office for approval; they rejected it. Two of the five members of the board saw unacceptable nudity. Hitchcock waited a few days, then showed the board the exact same sequence with no changes. Now, the three members who had not seen any nudity claimed they saw some, and the two members who originally did said that they no longer did. At loggerheads over what to do, the Production code office approved the scene as edited.

Oh, and it is Shasta brand chocolate syrup being used as blood in the shower scene, not Hershey’s or Bosco. Some accounts get that crazy detail wrong. Assistant director Hilton Green has said that the crew used Shasta because it had just come out in a convenient squeeze bottle.

Many, many years ago during the first flowering of the laserdisc era (era) I became interested in the commentary tracks that started accompanying classic films. Using a painfully makeshift and amateur setup, I made my own scene-specific commentary track for Psycho by recording a laserdisc onto VHS and substituting yours truly on a microphone for the film’s soundtrack. I used to lend the tape to students who missed any of my classroom lectures on the film. As it often happens when materials are loaned to students, eventually I loaned it out and never got it back. I was very sad because I had put so much work into it, and I would love to hear it again, if only to hear a slice of my past.

One of my goals in my upcoming retirement, when free time will be more than plentiful, is to recreate that commentary track and make it available on F This Movie (#PopePromise). Patrick has said he would love to post that as the podcast one week. Since I will be essaying that commentary track ALONE, two thirds of the way through, I will be violently murdered.

Psycho’s Three Miracles: Hitchcock’s directing prowess reaches a new peak as he guides the audience like a magician, misdirecting us over and over again, so the final reveal is devastating and delightful; Tony Perkin’s performance, so affecting that no one could shake it and he ended up typecast for life; and Bernard Herrmann’s beautiful, sad, shocking score, a funeral oratorio for strings.

In nomine Hitchcock, et Herrmann, y spiritu Perkins, Amen. “Mother… my mother… what’s the expression? She isn’t quite herself today.”

Cinema Bestius: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

We no longer need to search to find this black comedy. Or this terrific movie.

#9 - Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

The Pope remembers staying up late as a boy (#TheOtherYoungPope) in order to watch Dr. Strangelove on local television. Chicago CBS affiliate Channel 2 was often showing it at midnight or two in the morning. I thought I was the only one who knew about this incredible film. Years later, I read an interview in Chicago magazine with the Channel 2 employee who scheduled the movies. He admitted the station would just show crap in the afternoon and early evening; that’s when everyone was watching. He said those people would watch anything. Great movies, he explained, were scheduled in the wee, small hours in the morning, when he knew discerning film fanatics would seek them out. I felt strangely vindicated.

I also remember seeing my first copy of Leonard Maltin’s indispensible TV Movies book when I was eight or nine years old. It was an elephantine dictionary of films often shown on commercial television. In the bookstore, I searched its pages for the listing on Dr. Strangelove. I thought I was the only one who knew about this incredible film. There it was! I decided to buy the book (and every subsequent edition).

I remember when my high-school Film Study teacher screened Dr. Strangelove in class… to total silence. Three weeks later I drove to the Varsity Theater in Evanston to see it on the big screen. The audience there laughed so loudly they drowned out much of the dialogue. This was one of my first lessons in the huge divide between “school” and “real life.” I still thank that teacher, Mr. Ron Johnson, from the bottom of my heart for trying to introduce us to the classics.

The Plot In Brief: General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) has a theory that the Russians are sapping Americans’ “precious bodily fluids” by fluoridating our water. He orders a bomber wing to fly into Russian airspace and drop their atomic payloads. Ripper’s second in command, Group-Captain Lionel Mandrake (Peter Sellers), tries to convince Ripper to give him the code that will recall the bombers.

In the Pentagon’s War Room, General Buck Turgidson (George C. Scott) counsels President Merkin Muffley (Peter Sellers) about what to do next. Turgidson advises an all-out sneak attack in an effort to catch the Russians “with their pants down.” The President decides to call the Russian Premier and provide information to help the Russians shoot down our planes instead.

The President’s other advisor is Dr. Strangelove (Peter Sellers), a former Nazi rocket scientist who was brought to the United States after World War II to work in the defense department. Strangelove has a mechanical hand that refuses to follow orders. He suggests that Americans can stay alive after a nuclear holocaust in some of our deeper mineshafts.

Meanwhile, Major King Kong (Slim Pickens, in the role of a lifetime) pilots his bomber plane towards its Russian target. Damaged by a Russian missile, the plane continues its course to its target, flying so low that it cannot be picked up on radar. Will the planet be destroyed? Should fighting be allowed in the War Room? Will we meet again?

Dr. Strangelove is the funniest black comedy ever made—at every turn humans are thwarted by the very technology designed to keep them safe. At one point American troops are sent in to fight… American troops. When Pickens’ bomber plane is hit, the auto-destruct mechanism on the radio scrambler is damaged… and blows itself up. Something is very wrong when the fate of the world rests on a Coca-Cola vending machine.

The performances in the film are without peer. Peter Sellers has the flashiest job, given that he plays three separate roles (and was supposed to play a fourth until a broken ankle kept him from essaying the Major Kong part), but George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden, and Slim Pickens all give Sellers a run for his money, delivering standout performances and demonstrating the age-old rule that the best way to play comedy is to play it straight.

In fact, every time I watch the film, I am more and more taken with George C. Scott’s performance, all the more because Scott was not known as a comedian. Roger Ebert was a fan too. In his Great Movies series, Ebert writes,

“[Scott’s] performance is the funniest thing in the movie […] I found myself paying special attention to the tics and twitches, the grimaces and eyebrow arching, the sardonic smiles and gum chewing, and I enjoyed the way Scott approached the role as a duet for voice and facial expression. That can be dangerous for an actor. [….] Kubrick, whose attention to the smallest detail in every frame was obsessive, would have been aware of George C. Scott's facial gymnastics, and yet he endorsed them, and when you watch Strangelove you can see why. Scott's work is hidden in plain view. […] Yet you don't consciously notice his expressions because Scott sells them with the energy and conviction of his performance. He means what he says so urgently that the expressions accompany his dialogue instead of distracting from it.”

This movie also marks my first faltering steps away from film fandom and towards film scholarship. Gerald Mast’s book The Comic Mind spends many pages on Dr. Strangelove. Reading it as a boy, I was knocked out that a filmmaker could add so much subtext to a seemingly simple black comedy. Mast posits that Kubrick equates sex with death: from the two planes “refueling” each other during the opening credits, to the sexually suggestive names of all the principle characters, to Strangelove’s suggestion that man must abandon monogamous sexual relationships if the planet is to be repopulated. This was heady stuff (heh heh) for a twelve-year-old, and only left me CRAVING MORE!

In a film full of favorite scenes, my very favorite is Peter Seller’s phone call to the Russian Premier. Rumor has it that Sellers improvised great swaths of dialogue during filming. Proof of this can be seen in the film itself. Watch Peter Bull as Ambassador de Sadesky in the background of the scene. At several points, he is obviously trying not to laugh. Apparently, Sellers ruined take after take of the scene as cast members and crew exploded with laughter. Here is the beginning of his monologue—but you owe it to yourselves to check out the whole thing here:

President Muffley

Hello? Uh, Hello? Hello, Dmitri? Listen, I can't hear too well, do you suppose you could turn the music down just a little? A-ha, that's much better. Yeah, yes. Fine, I can hear you now, Dmitri. Clear and plain and coming through fine—I'm coming through fine too, eh? Good, then. Well then, as you say, we're both coming through fine. Good. Well, it's good that you're fine, and—and I'm fine. I agree with you. It's great to be fine. [Laughs] Now then, Dmitri, you know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb, the BOMB, Dmitri, the hydrogen bomb. Well now, what happened is, uh, one of our base commanders, he had a sort of - Well, he went a little funny in the head. You know—just a little funny. And uh, he went and did a silly thing. Well, I'll tell you what he did. He ordered his planes...to attack your country…

Well, let me finish, Dmitri. Let me finish, Dmitri. Well, listen, how do you think I feel about it? Can you imagine how I feel about it, Dmitri? Why do you think I'm calling you—just to say hello? Of course I like to speak to you! Of course I like to say hello! Not now, but any time, Dmitri. I'm just calling up to tell you something terrible has happened. It's a friendly call. Of course, it's a friendly call. Listen-- if it wasn't friendly… you probably wouldn't have even got it.

Dr. Strangelove’s Three Miracles: Flawless casting, cross-cutting that has never been bested in an American narrative film, and Peter Seller’s amazing versatility in three major roles. No matter where we look, Sellers seems to be the boss of our collective fate.

En nomine Kubrick, y Sellers, y spiritu Terry Southern, Amen…

Because I am capable of being JUST as sorry as you are.

Cinema Bestius: Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Heigh Ho! Heigh Ho! It’s off to work we go…

#10 – Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

How terrific is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs? Sergei Eisenstein (Yes, the Battleship Potemkin guy) called it “the greatest film ever made.” How groundbreaking is this movie as the first feature-length cartoon? Some people at the time thought that humans could not sit through a cartoon if it were longer than ten minutes. I do not know what these naysayers thought would happen upon the eleventh minute of viewing animation: Bleeding eyeballs? Mild nausea? Madness? Discomfiting discharge? Fatal case of “the whimsies?”

There, the Pope is now officially the first critic to mention the beloved Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in the same sentence as “discomfiting discharge.”

The Plot In Brief: An evil Queen thinks she is the fairest in the land. She has an acolyte in the form of a Magic Mirror who tells her that she is the fairest on a pretty much daily basis. Then one fateful day Snow White, a delightful young lady and friend to small animals, is suddenly judged to be the fairest. This is somewhat contentious because even though the Evil Queen won the Electoral College, Snow White won the popular vote. The evil Queen loses her shit and orders Snow White killed.

The poor huntsman given this dirty job is a bleeding-heart liberal who opposes the death penalty. He takes pity on Snow White and sets her free in the forest. (Presumably he believes that dainty princess/bluebird-whisperer Snow White has had extensive outdoor survival training, and will somehow prevail.) Snow White befriends some forest creatures and eventually comes upon a little cottage.

The cottage belongs to the titular dwarfs (I keep wondering if Walt Disney deliberately misspelled “dwarves” so that he might copyright the term.) The dwarfs find Snow White charming and invite her in. She quickly improves their lives: she cleans their house, she makes them food, and she shows them how to bathe. With their chances of being right-swiped on their Tinder profiles greatly improved, the dwarfs become quite attached to Snow White. The Wicked Queen, meanwhile, learns of the huntsman’s subterfuge and vows to take guaranteed health insurance away from the dwarfs. (Actually it’s been a while since I have screened this one; this plot summary may not be 100% accurate.)

The animation here is without peer. At the time, Disney was famous for scrapping weeks of animation if it was not up to his high standard. In fact, this feature project was so close to his heart that, during the meeting in which he introduced Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs to his animation team, Walt acted out the entire story, playing all the parts himself, over the course of ninety minutes. I love Walt.

As we would come to expect from future Disney features, the songs are tuneful and catchy; highlights include “Some Day My Prince Will Come,” “Whistle While You Work,” and the now iconic “Heigh Ho.” In fact, John Lennon wrote the Beatles’ song “Do You Want To Know A Secret?” after seeing Snow White. He was inspired by the Snow White song “I’m Wishing,” and originally wrote the lyrics, “Do you want to know a secret? Do you promise not to tell… standing by a wishing well?” The Pope is not making this up.

Even Popes like to have fun—and I like to play “The Dwarf Game!” I cannot be the only one who, after screening the film, enjoys making up names for dwarfs who did not quite make it into the movie. Disney and his animators wound up choosing the iconic seven’s names from a much longer list that originally included such memorable monikers as Baldy, Burpee, Dizzy, Gabby, Jumpy, Lazy, Nifty, Puffy, Shorty, Sniffy, Stuffy, Swifty, Tubby, and Wheezy. So dive in and make up your own B-List!

Here is my list of Lesser Dwarfs: Prickly, Tickly, Scabby, Dabby, Maybe, Crybaby, Coffee, Coughy, Coffy, Slappy, Picky, Louie, Chewy, Easy, Sleazy, Anxious, Ambivalent, Cautious, Gluten-Free, Crispy Crunch, and Boss Man Jim.

Post your favorite “also-ran” dwarfs in the comments section below.

AN ANNOYING AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL PAUSE: I am old enough to still remember when the Disney organization had its classic animated features on a seven-year theatrical re-release schedule. In the days before home video, Disney realized that, about every seven years, nature would provide a new, untapped audience of children who had never seen these wonderful movies on the big screen. Thanks to that program, I got to see Snow White, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo, Bambi, and other early classics in an honest-to-God movie theater. I treasure those memories and wish Disney would bring this program back. Parents need an alternative if the only movie for kids on a given weekend is The Secret Life of Pets! What parent would not instead opt for the original Lady and the Tramp, Jungle Book, or even The Fox and the Hound?

Listen up, Disney. There is money to be made.

Snow White’s Three Miracles: A perfectly realized fairy-tale narrative with a plucky heroine, terrific comic relief, and one of the greatest villains in movie history; animation that represented a huge leap forward from Disney’s previous “Silly Symphony” shorts; and a wonderful message for children—two of the most important things in life are empathy and friendship.

In nomine Disney, et Dopey, y spiritu Grimm, Amen.

Cinema Bestius: Star Wars

This is a difficult column to write, given the recent, sad passing of Carrie Fisher and Kenny Baker, and because how in the galaxy can we find something NEW to say about this movie?

#11 – Star Wars

Star Wars is the ultimate gee-whiz “kid’s adventure” film (NOTE: There is an “adventure” sub-genre often referred to in literature and film criticism as a “boy’s adventure” book or movie – I’m using “kid’s adventure” instead, NOT because Star Wars is a “kids’ movie,” but because it is 2017 and not 1917.)

No more iconic film has ever been made. The characters, dialogue, visuals, and score have been laser-etched into our collective consciousness. Star Wars’ sheer ubiquity, I feel, means that people sometimes devalue it as cinema; like Stonehenge, it simply IS. In fact, with prequels, sequels, side “stories,” and character-based spinoffs, Star Wars has practically become its own adventure sub-genre.

You already know about Star Wars. You already know how you feel about Star Wars as a franchise, you probably already know which Star Wars movie you like best, and you know which room in which to display your glass lamp full of vintage Star Wars action figures. (You don’t have a glass lamp full of vintage Star Wars action figures? Sorry, guess that’s just me.) So to make this column interesting to you, my beloved acolytes, I have wracked my brain (my Pope Pate) to find something NEW on which to focus.

In the spirit of the twelve year-old kid living inside of all of us, I would like to focus on this film’s wonderful and deeply satisfying onomatopoetics. Yes, Star Wars deserves its ranking as the Pope’s 11th favorite film if only for the way it SOUNDS. The Pope has previously weighed in on the awful changes visited on this film by its creator and the joys to be found in the “de-specialized” version, the only place where you can hear the original Oscar-winning sound mix.

Let’s revisit a few iconic Star Wars noises. Feel free to spray your laptop screen with spit as you try to vocalize along:

That “pew-pew-pew-pew” sound at the very beginning, when that big spaceship chases that little spaceship!

The ominous “khhhhhhhhh-khuuuuuh” of Darth Vader’s breathing, followed by James Earl Jones reciting his dialogue in the deep voice of a vengeful God!

That foghorn “A-hoog, gah-hroog” sound of the sand person fighting Luke!

The “hrummmmm, whoooosh, kkkrrrrrkkkrk!” of clashing light sabers!

That catchy ragtime/cocktail music playing in the Cantina! (This was actually a 1977 radio hit!)

Chewbacca’s expressive range of “hhhrrrarwhwrrraaaah” growls!

R2D2’s expressive range of “pweeeet-bliip-bbrrrr” beeps!

The “P-too, P-too, P-too” of blaster pistols firing!

Han Solo’s “Wah-hoo!” when he flies in at the end to help Luke!

That sound when the Rebels blowed up the Death Star, which I can’t even begin to try to write out! It sure blowed up real good and loud.

The “thunk” of a plastic toy hitting the rug as my son, then about three years old, stopped playing, looked up at the TV screen, and was so transfixed by what he saw that he literally dropped what he was doing. I don’t think he was merely responding to the cool ships and action of Star Wars; I have suspected that this was the moment he got hooked on movies. Such is the iconic power of this film.

The Pope could go on and on. Besides the perfect casting, the ground-breaking special effects, the adherence to Joseph Campbell’s “Hero” template, John Williams’ best score, and characters that generations of kids have identified with, this movie is so great (and we have all watched it so many times) that I would be happy just listening to it. I would rather LISTEN to Star Wars than WATCH many recent films. There, I said it.

Star Wars’ Three Miracles: Pew pew pew, Boom boom boom, and “Bum bum bum, bum-da bum, bum-da bum…”

In nomine Lucas, et Ben Burtt, y spiritu Flash Gordon, Amen.

Cinema Bestius: Blade Runner

This movie has burned so very, very brightly.

#12 – Blade Runner

(Note from your Pope: Here in the ecclesiastic city-state that is my suburban home, my movie infallibility is rarely questioned – except in the case of this week’s film. I’m going to wolf down a “Pope-sized” buttered popcorn while Jan, who is currently writing a BOOK on this movie [It’s only a book of poems, but she claims “it still counts.”] pens this week’s Bestius. I weighed in on Blade Runner about five years ago. You can find that column here.

“What’s your favorite movie?” is a dumb question. It’s an impossible oversimplification… “favorite” in what way? Do you mean the movie I’ll drop anything to watch when it pops up on cable, or the one that meant the most to me growing up, or the one I turn to when life is crushing me, or the movie that made me love movies? Is it Scary Movie Month? My answer might totally change during SMM. Also, could you ask me again tomorrow? Because I’m going to the movies tonight, and I’ve heard this one is AMAZING. Look—there are so many terrific movies out there that you can’t expect a person to choose just one. That’s ridiculous and reductive and kind of an insult to movies and the moviemakers who make them and the movie lovers who love them.

My favorite movie is Blade Runner.

The Plot In Brief: Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is an ex-cop pulled back onto the force for a special assignment: track and kill a gang of rogue “replicants” (human-like androids used off-world as slave labor) who have returned to Earth for unknown reasons. Along the way he meets Rachael (Sean Young), who works for the Tyrell Corporation, the company that manufacturers the replicants. As Deckard is drawn deeper into the case—and toward Rachael—he must confront the true meaning of Tyrell’s corporate motto, “more human than human.”

Roger Ebert famously wrote “it's not what a movie is about, it's how it is about it.” Few movies manage to illustrate this as well as Blade Runner. Its action is fairly simple; yet in every aspect (genre, theme, characterization, design) its execution is astoundingly complex. Exploring Blade Runner is like exploring an archeological dig; layer after layer calls back to previous discoveries, unearths new artifacts, and sparks new questions.

We’ve all experienced movies that have “no ‘there’ there”—the movie that’s enjoyable while we’re watching it, but dissolves into nothing in our minds during the car ride home from the multiplex. Blade Runner doesn’t dissolve, it expands. That expansiveness is the key to its place as one of the genre’s most influential films—in spite its lackluster reception on initial release. Blade Runner was one of the first films to take advantage of the new distribution opportunities offered by cable and home video; though it only made back about half of its $28 million budget at the box office, it was quite successful as a rental, and for many years was the Criterion Collection’s top-selling laser disc. It’s a movie that endlessly rewards repeat viewings, released when that was finally becoming possible.

That expansiveness is a big reason for my affection for this movie. I’ve talked about my Blade Runner love on this site here and here; I’ve also talked about my Blade Runner love at parties, school, the grocery store, poetry readings, and the doctor’s office because seriously, have you SEEN Blade Runner? (If the answer is “no,” see Blade Runner.) There’s just SO MUCH “there” there.

You want to talk subtext? Let’s spend the next 10,000 words discussing what Blade Runner has to say about what it means to be human. Or we could break that into sub-subtext: what it means to be human in an environment that commoditizes us, or what it means to be an organic being in a non-organic landscape, or what it means to be an outcast from a society that has labeled us as “other,” or how we make (or whether we can make) moral choices, or the ways in which memory defines us. Blade Runner speaks to all of these and more.

What about genre—shall we explore Blade Runner as sci-fi, or as film noir, or as neo-noir, or as a love story? Or instead, let’s concentrate on a few recurring motifs: the eye, vision, and seeing; the fallen angel, the prodigal son, the femme fatale; photographs, both as talisman and avatar; smoke, steam, and veils of all kinds; the triad of creator-creation-creative urge; artificial animals, the color red, pyramids. All of these motifs deserve attention when unpacking what Blade Runner “means.”

As a work of visual art, Blade Runner may be one of the most significant, influential, and boldly realized films ever produced. Syd Mead (as Blade Runner’s “visual futurist”), with production designer Lawrence G. Paull and art director David Snyer, virtually created the neo-noir, cyberpunk aesthetic. The interior spaces, the street scenes, and the sweeping skyscapes create a future that looks real and arrived at, not set-design-y.

Another 10,000 words could be devoted to the movie’s other standout features: the haunting, evocative score by Vangelis; Ridley Scott’s obsessively precise direction, which guides the viewer’s attention through frames packed with significant images; a terrific script (honed through countless revisions) based on a novel by seminal sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick; and the inspired casting and terrific performances (Ford is never better, in my opinion; and Rutger Hauer is amazing in a role that requires him to be part genius cyborg, part murderous warrior, and part frightened, abandoned toddler.)

Yet what I love most about Blade Runner is that, in spite of its incredible richness, it leaves so much unanswered and unexplained. In the end, that may be the key to its lived-in quality, the secret to its satisfying unpackability: it resists the urge to pick a single “truth” to tell. That’s how it chooses to be “about” what it’s about: by making its questions more about the asking than the answers.

A NOTE ON VERSIONS: We don’t have space here to discuss the seven “official” versions of Blade Runner (Wikipedia does that) or the numerous “fan cuts” (Google “Blade Runner white dragon” if you want to fall down that rabbit hole.) I fell in love with the original theatrical release; my favorite version is the 2007 Final Cut. Director Ridley Scott says that’s his favorite version too, which should be reason enough to love it; it also has what I believe is the far superior ending. (I don’t consider the Final Cut ending bleak; it’s certainly much more nuanced, and leaves some important questions importantly unanswered, which adds resonance to the rest of the movie’s themes and subtexts.) On Blu-ray, the Final Cut is stunning.

Look—I get that not everyone digs Blade Runner. It can seem slow for viewers who prefer straight-up action. This is a movie that takes its time and wants you to see and hear and feel every bit of kipple in the corner, every keening cry of the score. Yet for those who have seen it once and it didn’t “take,” I have a suggestion: if your previous viewing was not the Final Cut, check out the Final Cut. If you still don’t like it, I release you. There will always be a gulf between our hearts, but we can still be friends.

A NOTE ON THE SEQUEL: YES, I am excited to see a neo-noir sci-fi movie starring my boyfriend Harrison Ford and his sidekick Ryan Gosling, directed by the guy (Denis Villeneuve) who just did Arrival. NO, I am not excited that they made a sequel to Blade Runner. I wish it did not exist. My strategy is to just box off the original in my mind, and pretend the new movie is really about a future cop named Rint Dellers, a retired Blame Rugger who used to hunt duplidroids in Space City. Maybe it will be good.

Blade Runner’s Three Miracles: Art direction/production design that creates a future so layered, so boldly realized, and so authentically inhabited that it has influenced science fiction movies since its release; performances (or is this direction?) that demonstrate astounding depth of character through every glance and gesture; and a collection of themes and subtexts that inform each other and challenge the viewer in new ways with each screening.

In nomine Scott, et Philip K. Dick, y spiritu Deckard, Amen.

Cinema Bestius: The Searchers

Some semi-random thoughts on the greatest Western ever made.

#13 – The Searchers

I once read that Martin Scorsese used to screen The Searchers in his NYU film class in the late 1960s, but such was the polarizing force of star John Wayne’s conservatism that many students announced their intentions to boycott the screening. Scorsese instead told students that that week’s screening was an obscure, hard-to-see gem, locked the doors once the students were in attendance, revealed he would be screening the obscure gem the next week but tonight was screening The Searchers, and assured any students walking out that they would immediately fail his class.

Scorsese wanted his students to see this film. Later, of course, Scorsese would direct what is arguably the most successful remake of The Searchers, Taxi Driver. Great art inspires other great art.

The Plot In Brief: Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) returns from the Civil War years after it officially ends. He visits the homestead of his brother, which is almost immediately besieged by a tribe of Comanche Indians led by Chief Scar (Henry Brandon). The attackers kill almost all the family members, set fire to the house, and kidnap the two youngest girls, Lucy (Pippa Scott) and Debbie (Lana Wood in the earlier scenes, but sister Natalie Wood in the majority of the film).

Ethan puts together a ragtag posse and vows to bring back the girls. Joining him are the Reverend Captain Sam Clayton (Ward Bond), neighbor Brad Jorgensen (Harry Carey, Jr.) and the young and impetuous Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter). They soon discover that Lucy has been tortured and killed, but Ethan vows to continue searching for Debbie. The search winds up taking years and becomes a physical manifestation of Ethan’s utter hatred for Native Americans. Will Debbie be rescued? Would Ethan rather see Debbie dead, rather than become a bride of Chief Scar? Why aren’t all Westerns this morally complex?

I screened The Searchers in my Film Studies class for decades, and it always turned out to be one of the students’ favorites of the semester. I think they were expecting something simplistic—the “bang bang” simplicity of childhood play. Instead, they were treated to a rousing story, superbly told; and a morally complex tale showing the corrosive effect of racial hatred; and some fun “bang bang” cowboy stuff too!

The Searchers is unique in that it does not simply use racism as a plot point or a clothesline upon which to hang easy platitudes, it is actually about racism and the effects its on the soul. Ethan is beyond being haunted by his irrational hatred of Native Americans, it is the only thing left that defines him and drives him. We see in The Searchers a theme that would become a favorite of countless other filmmakers (I’m looking at you, John Woo): that of the good guy and the bad guy being essentially interchangeable. They cannot stand each other because they recognize too much of themselves in each other.

After a recent Chicago Film Critics Association screening of 1941, I asked Erik Childress and Peter Sobczynski if they thought Slim Pickens’s line, “Boy, watch that knife!” was a reference to Ward Bond’s very similar line in The Searchers. Childress said he was not sure but would not be surprised, given that Spielberg has screened The Searchers before directing every one of his films.

And of course, a young Buddy Holly sees the film during its original release, is taken with Ethan Edwards’s oft-repeated response to being challenged, and goes home to write “That’ll Be The Day.” Great art inspires other great art.

The Searchers’ Three Miracles: John Wayne’s career-best performance, brave and inevitable, like the turning of the Earth; a bountiful supply of terrific supporting performances, all of them perfectly cast; and John Ford’s exquisite direction, which never calls attention to itself. Ford was a master storyteller.

In nomine Ford, et Wayne, y spiritu Scorsese, Amen.

Cinema Bestius: The Gold Rush

The Gold Rush and I go waaaay back.

#14 – The Gold Rush

I will leave it to my readers to decide how precocious (Popecocious?) I was as a lad, but in the spirit of the season I offer this vignette. I remember wishing and wishing and wishing and wishing for a Super 8mm movie projector from the Sears Catalog at Christmastime. I was eight years old. This would have been 1970; home video and cable television were not part of my world. The local library (my second home) had many 8mm films that patrons could check out on their library cards. This was back when the AV Department consisted of vinyl records, microfilm of newspapers and magazines, and me.

Santa came through. I got the projector, though I would have to wait for my February birthday to get the screen because “Santa was not made of money.” In the meantime, I hung a bed sheet in the basement. I lived down there for the next seven years, screening films I had checked out of the library. My two favorites were Nosferatu and The Gold Rush. I would say conservatively that I have seen those two films three or four hundred times apiece. Such was my devotion to this hobby that I still remember the distinctive aroma that came from running celluloid past that impossibly hot projector bulb.

It was the musky, pervasive, plastic-y smell of happiness.

The Plot in Brief: Chaplin’s tramp character (here called The Lone Prospector) is lured to the snowy Klondike by the promise of gold. He meets and befriends two other prospectors, Big Jim McKay (Mack Swain) and Black Larsen (Tom Murray), both of whom will play a big part in his future. The tramp also meets and falls in love with dance-hall girl Georgia (Georgia Hale). Will the tramp strike gold? Will he win the girl’s heart? What does a leather shoe taste like when it is boiled and eaten?

I think that The Gold Rush is Chaplin’s best film. Sure, there are plenty of nominees for that position. In a previous lifetime, I taught a high-school Film Studies class and felt it was my duty to introduce students to Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton. Like many silent-film-loving teachers, I would assign a compare/contrast paper inviting students to discuss the two filmmakers.

Representing Chaplin, I alternated between showing The Gold Rush and The Kid. The Kid is terrific, mind you; the climax of that film always made the more sensitive kids cry. I can also hear people making a case for City Lights or Modern Times or the Mutual Shorts, but…

The Gold Rush is Chaplin’s best film because it most effectively integrates everything he did best: incorporating pathos into an otherwise comic narrative, focusing on Chaplin’s “Little Tramp” character without sacrificing the larger narrative, and showcasing Chaplin’s astounding skill as a physical comedian. The love story is integral to the plot and does not seem an afterthought. The comic sequences and gags emerge organically from the story. The happy ending does not seem like a dream or a cheat or a mere shrug of Chaplin’s shoulders.

The recent BFI monograph on the film goes into fascinating detail regarding the film’s twisted provenance. The Gold Rush was released in 1925; Chaplin later prepared a sound version in 1942, featuring a new score he had written himself and narration replacing all the inter-titles. When this version proved to be a hit, Chaplin let the silent version’s original copyright lapse. It fell into the public domain, which led to decades of compromised versions of the original being shown and sold. Distributors made copies from copies; ignored Chaplin’s rigid quality control standards; and screened, copied, and sold prints and VHS tapes that quickly became eyesores and fodder for Walgreen’s $1 bin. This fascinating monograph ponders the changes wrought to Chaplin’s original and asks probing questions about what the “official” version of any film can ever claim to be.

The quality of The Gold Rush that first attracted me—and keeps me riveted more than forty years after my first viewing—is simply Chaplin’s comedy. Laboriously worked out in multiple takes, these scenes are without peer in the world of silent comedy. Such was Chaplin’s obsession with getting it right that, when filming the famous Thanksgiving Banquet scene—during which the Prospector and McKay are trapped in a snowbound shack and resort to eating a leather shoe—Chaplin filmed take after take after take. The fake shoes that Chaplin and Swain ate over and over again were made of black licorice; unfortunately, no one on set realized that licorice is a laxative. The production had to shut down for a few days while Chaplin and Swain “worked it out.”

The three best sequences in the film are the banquet scene described above, a party scene where Chaplin transforms dinner rolls into dancing shoes and performs the “Oceana Roll,” and the famous tipping cabin sequence. Some critics have accused Chaplin of sloppy filmmaking, focusing more on performance than on sets, lighting, or camera work, but the tipping cabin gives lie to that criticism.

The Lone Prospector and McKay have been drinking, but awaken the next morning to observe a curious phenomenon. The floor under their feet feels funny. Unbeknownst to them, the cabin has been transported while they slept by a windstorm, depositing them on the brink of a huge crevasse. The cabin teeters precariously, held in place by a single rope, anchoring it to a rock. What follows is one of the funniest and most exciting sequences in all of silent cinema. Every time one of them moves, the cabin shudders closer to its doom. Then Charlie gets the hiccups. (This sequence is also a handy metaphor for what every day of our lives seems like here in the early 21st century.)

The Gold Rush’s three miracles: an awesome synthesis of hilarity and heartbreak, tremendous supporting performances, and gag sequences that are still laugh-out-loud funny 91 years after the fact. This is a funny, funny film.

In nomine Chaplin, et Charlie, y spiritu little tramp, Amen.

Cinema Bestius: Duck Soup

This film is like a comfortable pair of slippers… or a delicious cup of hot cocoa… if slippers and cocoa were hilarious and had a bunch of books written about them.

#15 – Duck Soup

When your pontiff was just a wee little Popeling, Chicago’s WGN showed Duck Soup every New Year’s Eve. One of my earliest and most vivid memories involves visiting my grandfather’s place on that holiday; his two-flat was full of boring adult talk, but my beloved Uncle Tony took pity and allowed me to watch television upstairs in his apartment. That was the first time I saw Duck Soup. It was like nothing else I had ever seen and boy, did it make me laugh! I have noticed that Turner Classic Movies often shows Duck Soup on New Year’s Eve. Is this a nationwide tradition that I was not aware of as a child, or did the TCM programmers also grow up in Chicago and are now trying to relive the past? For more than 30 years, the original theatrical poster for Duck Soup has hung in my classroom. Maybe I too am trying to relive the past.

The Plot In Brief: Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho Marx) is installed as the new president of Freedonia, but only because rich Mrs. Teasdale (Margaret Dumont) demands this in return for loaning the country more money. Trentino (Louis Calhern), ambassador from the neighboring country of Sylvania, is interested in starting a war with Freedonia. Trentino hires two spies, Chicolini (Chico Marx) and Pinky (Harpo Marx), to gather incriminating evidence against Firefly and discredit him with the Freedonian people. Will Firefly be a successful president? Will Mrs. Teasdale be a successful love interest? Will Chicolini and Pinky be successful spies? Will all hell break loose?

The Pope has read many books about the Marx Brothers. (The best ones are The Marx Brothers Scrapbook by Richard J. Anobile; Monkey Business/Duck Soup in Lorrimer’s Classic Film Scripts series; and Groucho, Harpo, Chico, and Sometimes Zeppo by Joe Adamson.) The Pope certainly hopes (#PopeHope) that the recent publication of three MORE books on the Marx Brothers proves they will not be consigned to the trashcan of history any time soon. Hail, Hail Euphoria! by Roy Blount, Jr. is a robust appreciation of Duck Soup as a war film—a delightful, tiny book and a fast read. Two much more scholarly tomes are Four of the Three Musketeers: The Marx Brothers on Stage by Robert Bader, which chronicles their early stage careers using awe-inspiring amounts of new research; and Gimme A Thrill: The Story of ‘I’ll Say She Is’ by Noah Diamond, which chronicles the Marx Brothers’ “lost” musical, their only Broadway success never adapted into film. Christmas reading by the fire, pilgrims—your Pope is a loving Pope and knows that your lives will be improved only to the extent that you seek out these books.

In spite of this veritable library, I cannot remember any Marx Brothers book discussing Duck Soup as a musical. Its three musical numbers (“Hail Freedonia,” “Just Wait ‘Til I Get Through With It,” and “Freedonia’s Going to War”) are so delightful and funny that one wishes Bert Kalmar and Harry Ruby had made this a full-blown musical, like the Marxes’ earlier stage successes. Ironically, Duck Soup is also the only Marx Brothers film where Chico does not have an extended piano solo, nor does Harpo play his namesake instrument.

I have always thought that the brilliance of the Marx Brothers’ satire was that it was applicable to all situations and eras (era). When the USA got itself all worked into a lather during the first Gulf War—with CNN’s cameras following smart missiles right down enemy chimneys—it always reminded me of Duck Soup’s musical number “Freedonia’s Going To War,” which satirizes this peculiar national bloodlust across many nations, governments, and musical styles. I will avoid the temptation to parse out the parallels between this 1933 film and our current political situation, but good Lord, just listen to Rufus T. Firefly laying out his political agenda in a film made more than 80 years ago:

No one's allowed to smoke
Or tell a dirty joke
And whistling is forbidden
If chewing gum is chewed
The chewer is pursued
And in the hoosegow hidden

If any form of pleasure is exhibited
Report to me and it will be prohibited
I'll put my foot down, so shall it be
This is the land of the free

The last man nearly ruined this place
He didn't know what to do with it
If you think this country's bad off now,
Just wait 'til I get through with it

The country's taxes must be fixed
And I know what to do with it
If you think you're paying too much now
Just wait till I get through with it

I will not stand for anything that's crooked or unfair
I'm strictly on the up-and-up, so everyone beware
If any man's caught taking graft, and I don't get my share
We stand him up against the wall and… Pop goes the weasel!

If any man should come between a husband and his bride
We'll find out which one she prefers by letting her decide
If she prefers the other man, the husband steps outside
We stand him up against the wall and… Pop goes the weasel!

The Pope loved showing Duck Soup in his now defunct Film Studies class. Every year, the students would come into class suspicious of these older jesters and leave class loving the Marx Brothers. There is something about their humor that transcends place and time. Students used to particularly love Groucho’s ability to insult anyone and everyone, especially the rich and stuffy Mrs. Teasdale. Their favorite joke was always Groucho saying, as he tried to romance Mrs. Teasdale, “I can see you now, bending over a hot stove. But I can’t see the stove.”

CONSUMER ALERT: The recent restoration and Blu-ray release of the Marx Brothers’ five Paramount titles is nothing short of revelatory. The Cocoanuts (1929) and Animal Crackers (1930), which have previously looked and sounded terrible, are now both gorgeous (and Animal Crackers has had some lost footage restored); Monkey Business (1931), Horse Feathers (1932), and Duck Soup (1933) didn’t need as much of an upgrade, but the restorers somehow managed to make incremental improvements. As with Universal’s 2013 restoration of the 1931 Dracula, I hope the Marx Brothers restorations will spark a critical reassessment of these films—especially the earliest two, which were often held up as examples of creaky old early talking pictures. (Ever wonder why every piece of paper in The Cocoanuts is inexplicably soaking wet? That was to reduce the crinkle and crackle, which early sound microphones tended to amplify and exaggerate.)

Duck Soup’s Three Miracles: The enduring, anarchic spirit of the Marx Brothers, still fresh and zippy decades later; the crazy script by Bert Kalmar, Harry Ruby, Arthur Sheekman, and Nat Perrin (who later produced and wrote for The Addams Family television series); and sharp direction that never steps on the jokes by future Oscar winner Leo McCarey. Groucho used to lament that McCarey was the ONLY first-rate director who ever directed a Marx Brothers’ picture.

In Nomine Groucho, y Chico, et Spiritu Harpo, Amen.