25. Private Investigations &...

Lyrics

It's a mystery to me
The game commences
For the usual fee
Plus expenses
Confidential information
It's in a diary
This is my investigation
It's not a public inquiry

I go checking out the report
Digging up the dirt
You get to meet all sorts
In this line of work
Treachery and treason
There's always an excuse for it
And when I find the reason
I still can't get used to it

And what have you got at the end of the day ?
What have you got to take away ?
A bottle of whiskey and a new set of lies
blinds on the window and a pain behind the eyes

Scarred for life
No compensation
Private investigations


This song proves that even a great band such as Dire Straits can have a misfire. First of all, in the clip the Dire Straits present themselves as a brooding, existentially sad group. This is an image that doesn't fit them at all and the video only becomes unintentionally funny because of it. The other problems I have with this song are more subjective, but I am not a fan of recital and I also find the song a bit monotonous. But the lyrics are admittedly interesting and were a good excuse for me to finally see a film-noir. It won't be the last time. One of the most important tropes of the film-noir is the femme fatale and there are still lots of songs to come about women who have hurt men in unexpected dark ways. Besides that I loved this film, which I chose because it was IMDB's highest rated noir about a private investigator.

The Movie: The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941)

The Maltese Falcon has a, for its time, revolutionary long take lasting seven minutes. I am a big fan of long takes, but I only found out about this long take when I read something about this film, after watching it. This is such an entertaining, fun film that absorbs you so much into its wonderful plot and characters that you sometimes simply miss the technical details of the actual film making. It also feels like a more 'modern' film than John Huston's Prizzi's Honor, which he made 44 years later in 1985, despite the fact that it mostly consists of people in rooms talking to each other. John Huston doesn't spent much time introducing his characters; we are thrown straight into the plot from the beginning. In the first scene private detectives Sam Spade and his partner Miles Archer are asked to shadow some shady figure, in the second scene Miles is killed and in the third scene we and Sam find out that he is now a suspect in the killing of Miles. On top of this Sam finds out the woman from the beginning, Brigid, wasn't telling the (complete) truth and that she's involved in a quest for a Maltese falcon, together with a couple of other eccentric characters. This falcon is a so-called McGuffin, an object that is only important to set the plot in motion and move it along, like the suitcase in Pulp Fiction. This comparison with Pulp Fiction isn't entirely coincidental. The movie often feels like a Tarantino movie made in 1941. Besides that it is adapted from a novel by Dashiel Hammett. These noirish novels by writers such as Hammett and Raymond Chandler were and are often called pulp fiction. It's fiction dealing with the slightly immoral, sleazy, lowlife characters in society.

What I liked most about the movie was that the position Sam has in the whole plot he's found himself in changes with each passing scene. Or, to put it pretentiously the dynamics of power are constantly shifting with each scene. In each scene Sam may find that he or some other character has some crucial peace of information which might change who has the upper hand. So Sam has to be constantly and fervently thinking and hustling in order to make the best out of the situation he is in. Even though he himself doesn't really have an idea of what exactly is the best (or worst) he can get. From the beginning till the end of the movie he doesn't have a moment of rest. He seems to be constantly thinking or doing something. Obviously in many movies when we see the lead character he or she is busy doing something. But we usually do have the feeling that that character isn't constantly busy. That during the time that we didn't follow him, he was sleeping or eating, or doing something else uninteresting and irrelevant to the plot. In the Maltese Falcon we get the feeling that even during the time we didn't follow Sam, he was doing everything in his power to solve his complicated situation. Sam Spade is such a greatly written character, that it made me want to read some novels by Hammett. But an important reason for why Spade is such a great character in this film is the way Humphrey Bogart plays him. This is now the only Bogart movie I've seen, but I am already convinced that he was indeed a great actor. At all times we have just as much information as Spade does, but Bogart makes it always look as if Spade knows a bit more than us and that he is absolutely confident that everything will turn out to be OK. But best of all, he plays Spade as someone who is amused by the situation he is in and who loves doing what he does, despite all the possible dangers. Bogart's Spade is someone who grins and smirks when he finds out something even though it may not be in his best interest. He has to contain his grin when questioning someone, because he simply loves it. An important reason for Spade's joy is probably also Bogart's own joy for the fact that he is making such a wonderful movie full of twists and turns and great dialogue for him to say.

            



   

24. Angels &...

Lyrics


I sit and wait
Does an angel contemplate my fate
And do they know
The places where we go
When we're grey and old
'Cause I have been told
That salvation lets their wings unfold
So when I'm lying in my bed
Thoughts running through my head
And I feel the love is dead
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

When I'm feeling weak
And my pain walks down a one way street
I look above
And I know I'll always be blessed with love
And as the feeling grows
She breathes flesh to my bones
And when love is dead
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead

And through it all she offers me protection
A lot of love and affection
Whether I'm right or wrong
And down the waterfall
Wherever it may take me
I know that life won't break me
When I come to call, she won't forsake me
I'm loving angels instead


I like Robbie Williams, he has made many very entertaining songs (such as this one), but there is no way that this or any song of him should be this high on a list of best songs ever made. We haven't even come across a song yet by people like Elvis Presley, Paul Simon, Sting, Red Hot Chili Peppers and many more performers who are far greater than Robbie Williams. And Advertising Space, his best song, isn't even featured in the top 2000 list. Having said that, it is always nice when you don't have to do a lot of thinking to link a movie to a song. There is a classic movie which is exactly about angels contemplating the faiths of people and angels falling in love with people.

The Movie: Der Himmel uber Berlin (Wings of Desire) (Wim Wenders, 1987)

After finishing the screenplay for Wings of Desire, as this movie is known in English, Wim Wenders should have gone on writing and make a book out if his screenplay. This is certainly an odd, very interesting movie, but it could have been a brilliant book. In fact the film reminded me of the great philosophical books of the Norwegian writer Jostein Gaarder, like Sophie's World (his most famous one), Maya and The Orange Girl. In all his books Gaarder, through interesting and fun philosophical thoughts and discussions, shows that life on earth is great and full of wonder, that humans are essentially wonderful, interesting beings, and that human connections, whether social, romantic or even professional, matter and enrich our lives immensely. All these while acknowledging that humans can be sometimes capable of evil acts and that life can sometimes be miserable. These are pretty much the same themes that are explored in Wings of Desire, only here they are much less fleshed out. I believe that in general books are a better medium for philosophical discussions than movies. In books there is more space to explore an idea and there is much less concern for a plot. And if you don't understand something you can reread it and understand it better. While in a movie you have to follow the pace set by the director and editor.

This is very clear in Wings of Desire. We follow here two angels who wander around Berlin listening to the thoughts of the Berlin inhabitants. If a Berliner is depressed they try to console him. While the Berliners can't see the angels, when the angels are around them, the human sometimes can feel the presence of 'something' and become happier. But the angels do not have a lot of power. We see that sometimes a human will kill himself, even when an angel tries to console him. In any case, the Berliners turn out to be incredibly eloquent, intelligent people whose thoughts are often very deep. (This, by the way, is not a criticism. It may not be a realistic representation of the people of Berlin, but the movie doesn't want to be that. And if Wenders had the Berliners thinking about what to buy for dinner it would make a very boring film.) All these thoughts are very interesting, but we never have much time to think about them themselves. After we hear from a person we move on to the next person who has some different thought. And not only do we hear the thoughts of the humans, sometimes the angels themselves have philosophical discussion about the differences between angels and humans and the angelic and the human world. The movie lasts for two hours, but for the first one and a half hour this is how it unfolds. It is all very interesting, but because we never really get the time to think about most ideas it sometimes gets frustrating. It must be said though that while all thoughts are different, they are all underlined by the theme of alienation. This was also an important theme in the very good film Paris, Texas, the only other Wenders film I had seen before this one. In Wings of Desire Wenders argues that alienation is horrible. Whether you are alienated from your love, your family or even your nation, you will get depressed. We need to have a sense of togetherness or community to be happy. We need to not only know that we can be loved, but that we ourselves can love too.

In the last half an hour though the movie reaches another level and becomes wonderfully absurd and inventive. One of the angels, Damiel, has fallen in love with a trapeze artist he can hear the thoughts of and has decided that he wants to become a human being. As he says it he wants to live in the 'now' and not in eternity. The first scenes when he is a human are wonderful. We see Damiel soaking in the wonders of the world with great joy. He can for the first time feel pain, taste food and see colors. (The film is shot in black and white when we see something from the point of view of an angel and in color when we see something from the point of view of a human being.) Hilariously he finds out that many other angels have come to earth to live as humans, one of them being the famous American actor Peter Falk, known mostly for his work as detective Columbo. In the end at a rather odd, but wonderful rock concert by Nick Cave he finds the trapeze artist. I can't say much about what happens, because I didn't really understand it myself. But these last scenes unfold in such a curious and unique manner, that the movie only becomes more fascinating.

23. Sultans of Swing &...

Lyrics

You get a shiver in the dark
It's a rainin' in the park, but meantime
South of the river you stop and you hold everything
A band is blowin' Dixie double four time
You feel alright when you hear the music ring...

And now you step inside but you don't see too many faces
Comin' in out of the rain to hear the jazz go down
Competition in other places...
Oh but the horns they blowin' that sound
Way on down south, way on down south London town

You check out Guitar George, he knows all the chords
But he's strictly rhythm he doesn't wanna make it cry or sing
They've said an old guitar is all he can afford
When he gets up under the lights to play his thing

And Harry doesn't mind, if he doesn't make the scene
He's got a daytime job, he's doin' alright
He can play the honky tonk like anything
Savin' it up, Friday night...
With the Sultans... with the Sultans of Swing

And a crowd of young boys they're fooling around in the corner
Drunk and dressed in their best brown baggies and their platform soles
They don't give a damn 'bout any trumpet playing band
It ain't what they call rock and roll
And the Sultans... yeah the Sultans, they play Creole

Creole baby

Uh huh

And then the man he steps right up to the microphone
And says at last just as the time bell rings
'Goodnight, now it's time to go home'
And he makes it fast with one more thing
'We are the Sultans... We are the Sultans of Swing'


It is impossible to listen to this song without a smile on your face, it is so joyous and fun. I had never seen the clip before, but in combination with it the song is even better. You can sense the joy and effortlessness with which Mark Knopfler performs it. When I was little I really liked the fact that in their first single the Dire Straits had the audacity to proclaim that they were 'the sultans of swing.' And I still find it quite marvelous what an incredibly confident first single this is. I am sure the Dire Straits had some doubts about whether they would 'make it' or about what their sound would be, but based on this song you wouldn't believe that. It feels like a song made by a very experienced band that knows exactly what it's doing.
I couldn't really find a movie about the jazz scene or a jazz club in London, so I chose a movie about the happenings inside a jazz(-like) club in Harlem in the 1920's. Though after writing this paragraph I now realize that this would have been a good opportunity to finally see Citizen Kane, which is obviously (seen as) a very confident movie by a first-time director. Anyway, that will have to wait.

The Movie: The Cotton Club (Francis Ford Coppola, 1984)

Seeing Citizen Kane would have probably been more interesting. This movie was quite a disappointment. Before this I hadn't seen anything by Coppola besides his first two Godfather films. But I felt that they, especially the second one, had absolutely earned their reputation. Besides this, The Cotton Club had a very interesting cast and seemed to have an interesting mix of gangsters and music. So I was quite surprised that I enjoyed it so little The movie feels like one of Woody Allen's films in which he romanticizes a certain period and mixes fantasy with reality. Radio Days and Midnight in Paris are good examples of it. Unfortunately The Cotton Club lacks the wit and charm of Allen's movies. Coppola has admittedly taken great care of the look of the movie. The sets and costumes are all meticulously thought out and constructed. We get lots of shots of musicians dancing in the bright spotlight and lots of shots of gangsters sitting in the dark with only their face lit up. But the movie doesn't really do anything with this. There aren't many memorable or interesting scenes, the plot is cliched, a bit predictable and doesn't really go anywhere and most of the characters are rather flat and undeveloped

The movie focuses mostly on the gangsters that run the Cotton Club and the black musicians that perform in it. But these are mostly treated as two separate entities. It would have been more interesting if the story lines of the gangsters and the musicians intertwined a bit more. Now the movie often feels as two shorter movies that happen to happen at the exact same place. In one storyline we follow Richard Gere's Dixie Dwyer an aspiring musician who can't play in the Cotton Club, because only blacks are allowed to play there. (Though in a nicely ironic touch blacks aren't allowed to be in attendance there. They are only allowed entrance if they are musicians). Due to a series of coincidences Dixie has to work for the feared gangster Dutch. Dixie has to entertain Dutch's mistress Vera when Dutch has 'work' to do. Naturally Dixie and Vera fall in love with each other. In the other story we follow Gregory Hines' Sandman Williams who, together with his (real-life) brother tries to make it as a tap dancer in The Cotton Club. Sandman also hopes to woo Lila, a mulatto woman also performing in The Cotton Club. There is not much of narrative advancement in both of these stories. Dixie and Vera halfheartedly flirt, knowing that they don't have much chance at a future together. Dutch sees them and threatens them. They oblige him and after a couple of scenes the same thing happens all over again. It is also never made clear why Dutch would go to so much trouble for Vera. We never actually see him enjoy her company or do anything but fight with her. She is more a burden for him. And in the case of Hines, we see him tap dancing a bit, then we see him unsuccessfully wooing Lila a bit, then he tap dances again, etc. The two most interesting characters in the movie are Cotton Club's owner Owney Madden and his bodyguard Frenchy. They have a surprising friendly relationship and have mutual respect for each other. The scene when they meet after Frenchy has been kidnapped and Owney has paid the ransom money starts of tense, but leads to a surprising confirmation of their friendship. It is by far the best scene of the movie.

There is another reason why this mixing of gangsters and music didn't work. The gangster's plot is played straight and for dramatic effect. Only this drama is often undercut because after a killing there is often a cut straight away to a scene with joyous jazz music. Or sometimes we hear this joyous jazz music on the soundtrack, while we watch a dramatic gangster scene. This doesn't really work and often makes this gangster scenes feel a bit like a parody of gangster scenes. This clearly wasn't Coppola's intent. Now, I have to make clear that I am not saying that you can never put joyous music on the soundtrack while showing horrific things. After all, in my previous post I wrote about the greatness of Pulp Fiction. But in The Cotton Club it doesn't work and feels careless.

What I did like about The Cotton Club is its cynicism. All its characters have norms, values and ideals. But they are all very willing to let go of them, if by doing so they can achieve personal gain. They don't agree with the unfair rules of the society they belong to, but know that if they obey this rules their lives will be better. There aren't many (Hollywood) films that portrait their characters in such a way. Dixie may love Vera, but it's much better and more fruitful for him to stay on good terms with Dutch. And Dixie also cares deeply about his brother Vincent, played by a young Nicolas Cage, but he cares much more about being a movie star. So when Owney kills Vincent, Dixie doesn't do much to stop him and even helps Owney a bit. After all it is Owney who brought Vincent to Hollywood and who makes him a star. Vera on the other hand also loves Dixie and hates Dutch, but by staying with Dutch she hopes she'll get her own jazz club. She eventually does. Lastly the black musicians don't agree with the fact that other blacks aren't allowed to enter The Cotton Club. But despite it, they have no problem performing in it. They know it is their best chance for a good life with money and fame.

This is too a pretty good scene

22. Riders on the Storm &...

Lyrics

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm

There's a killer on the road
His brain is squirmin' like a toad
Take a long holiday
Let your children play
If ya give this man a ride
Sweet family will die
Killer on the road, yeah

Girl ya gotta love your man
Girl ya gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
The world on you depends
Our life will never end
Gotta love your man, yeah

Wow!

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Into this house we're born
Into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
Riders on the storm

Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm
Riders on the storm

I am a big fan of The Doors. Their music is wholly unique and very electric. It's no wonder they were quite controversial in 1967. Even now their music feels groundbreaking and new. What is even more astonishing is that they only existed for four years from 1967 to 1971. During this period they have made more great songs than many other bands do for a much longer period. And none of these songs are very much alike. Unfortunately they lived as crazy as some of their songs are, which resulted in Jim Morrison's early death. The Doors and drugs now seem inseparable and when I think of The Doors I also often think of my own relationship with drugs, which is nonexistent. I am terrified of drugs and I will, most probably, never take it. But it can't be denied that The Doors were mostly on drugs while writing their songs and that drugs played a substantial part in making their songs so wonderfully unique. And they are not the only artists whose great work is shaped in part by their drug addiction. Quentin Tarantino for example wrote half of Pulp Fiction in a coffee shop in Amsterdam. Considering that this blog is called Tarantino & The Doors there obviously should be at least one link between a Doors song and a Tarantino movie. Riders on the Storm was the song that introduced me to The Doors and Pulp Fiction was the movie that introduced me to Tarantino.

The Movie: Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)

Pulp Fiction didn't just introduce me to Quentin Tarantino, it also changed my perception of movies. After watching Pulp Fiction I realized for the first time that movies could be more than simple entertainment and that film making might actually be considered a form of art. I realized that there is more than one way to make movies and that movies could be wildly original and astonishingly inventive. And that even violence could be fun in the movies and that there needn't always be a real hero to root for. After watching it I started to really love movies and get more and more interested in them. I've seen Pulp Fiction now about 4/5 times and every time I watch it I find new wonderful things in it. I could write a lot about it, but I'll focus on what I find the most interesting.

We all know by now that Tarantino is a movie-lover who is influenced by other movies, references them and shamelessly steals from them. Watching Pulp Fiction I got the feeling that Tarantino was also influenced by Seinfeld. In 1994, when Pulp Fiction came out Seinfeld was airing for 5 seasons and was probably the most popular TV-show. Tarantino's dialogue is completely original, but especially Jules and Vincents' dialogue could be easily used in an episode of Seinfeld. It's very easy to imagine George and Jerry talking about whether foot massages mean something or whether pigs are clean animals. This does not mean that the dialogue, besides being funny and original, is meaningless. It very often is in the service of the story and the characters. A few examples: The foot massage discussion, besides being funny, serves to establish the fact that Marsellus is a ruthless man, you don't want to anger. It therefore also adds extra tension to Vincent's date with Mia. The famous 'Royale with cheese' conversation is later again used very effectively by Vincent and Jules to taunt their victims. Jules does not quote the bible for no reason. He really believes in God and his faith really has consequences for him. By the way, this quoting of the Bible is even more funny, because almost nothing that Jules says, really is written in Ezequiel 25:17. It's made up by Tarantino. And of course there is the wonderful, hilarious speech by Captain Koons to the young Butch, about the watch of Butch's father, which helps explain why Butch would be willing to risk his life to retrieve his watch.

This basement scene with the 'gimp' is a scene I never really liked. I found it too mean-spirited, ugly and very close to torture-porn. After a couple viewings I realized that it's an important scene that makes the movie even better. If the movie were told chronologically it would have been the last scene in the movie. The movie would start with the retrieving of the suitcase by Jules and Vincent (if you discount the flashback about Butches watch). The youngsters in the room are killed by Jules because they tried to figuratively fuck Marsellus like he was a bitch. In the basement the hillbillies literally try to fuck Marsellus like he was a bitch. When he is saved Marsellus is asked what he is gonna do to the rapist. Well, Marsellus is gonna call 'coupla hard, pipe-hittin' niggers' to get 'medieval on the rapist's ass.' Obviously this is basically what Jules and Vincent were doing when we first met them. So the movie is not only circular in form, but also in content. I recently saw Steven Spielberg's pretty good movie Munich. In the movie Spielberg argues that violence only leads to more violence and that even if you kill one of your enemies he'll simply be replaced by someone else who may even be more vicious. One could argue that Tarantino states the same thing here, only in a much more entertaining way. After all, Vincent is now dead (not that Marsellus knows this) and Jules has quit, but they will simply be replaced by others and the violence will continue.

All of Tarantino's movies are very violent and often the violence is indeed presented in a comical way. But as I argued in the previous paragraph Tarantino does not approach violence mindlessly and I would even call him a relatively moral filmmaker. This is perhaps most obvious in Inglourious Basterds, but it can also be seen in Pulp Fiction and not just in the example I gave in the previous paragraph. Jules for example renounces violence, Vincent does not and Vincent eventually dies. And Butch goes back to save Marsellus from the rapists. For doing the right thing, Marsellus forgives Butch the fact that he screwed up their agreement and lets him go.

A couple of other things. One of the many reasons why this films is such fun is its fantastic use of music. I can't think of any other movie which uses popular music in such a great way. A lot of scenes are accompanied by a great song and the song almost always seems to be a perfect fit for the scene.
The production design is wonderful too. Every room is filled with wonderful and odd details, with of course the Jackrabbit Slim's being the highlight.