155. Fruitvale Station

Song - New Year's Day (U2)

Movie: Fruitvale Station (Ryan Coogler, 2013)

This film holds up and may even be better than I remembered. I was not sure it would.  Back in 2013 it felt like a really big deal that a widely released American film would acknowledge so openly the police killings of (unarmed) black Americans. I have never seen an audience leave a theater as silently and as contemplatively as the Dutch audience did at the end of this film. That response fitted the film, which was deeply invested in showing the humanity and love of everyone on screen, including most of the white people, and was more thoughtful and sad than angry. If anyone soon makes a film about George Floyd, it will certainly strive for a different mood and feel. 

The film's supposed social importance aside, I also felt like it signaled the arrival of a director who would be making great films for a long time. Many people obviously disagree, but Ryan Coogler has not had the most interesting post-Fruitvale Station career. Black Panther is probably the best Marvel film, but it's still very much a Marvel film, while in my view Creed 2, directed by Steven Caple Jr (a director I know nothing about), is miles better than its predecessor. With Creed Coogler tried to combine an understated black social drama with the mythology of Rocky. In doing so Rocky overshadowed the new characters, while being turned into an outdated oaf. One of the most cringey moments in recent American film occurs when Creed talks to Rocky about the cloud and the latter confusingly looks to the sky. Creed 2 just decides to Rockify everything, fully incorporating Adonis and Bianca into the Rocky myth and its kitschy grandeur, unabashed sincerity and melodramatic (but honest!) humanity. This allows them to express grand feelings about love, boxing, their lives, Rocky and Drago, an approach that fits the expressive and unreserved acting styles of Tessa Thompson and Michael B. Jordan incredibly well. Creed 2 is not just a great Rocky film (only the oiginal 1976 one is better, and I am even not 100% sure about that) but also one of the greatest romances of this century. I suppose you have to thank Coogler for setting it up, but that he didn't come close to pulling of anything like it, doesn't speak for him. 

Coogler's next job is Black Panther 2, which is set to be one of the most dutiful and depressing film productions in recent history. IMDB also lists Wrong Answer as a Coogler film in development, which is sitting there since after Fruitvale Station. That was also when Ta-Nehisi Coates (who has written the screenplay for the film) was at the height of his relevance. So even if it gets eventually made, it feels like its moment has passed. All in all, it would be great if Coogler soon escapes the franchise machinery, to have a real career. Same goes for Jordan, who is currently Hollywood's biggest victim of nepotism; he should be getting John David Washington's roles. But whatever happens to Jordan and Coogler, they will always have Fruitvale Station. It is really a great film. 

Fruitvale Station is one of those 'a day in the life' films. What distinguishes it from many similar works is that it is much more attuned to the rhythms of daily life. Almost the entire first half of the film consists of Oscar Grant (Jordan) running errands, with Coogler patiently showing all the boring detail that goes into running an errand. When Oscar for example needs to pick up his girlfriend Sophina (Melonie Diaz) from work after pumping gas, we see every unexciting step necessary to complete that process, including Oscar parking the car, switching off the engine, opening the door of his car, getting out of the car, closing the door of his car, walking towards Sophina, Sophina walking towards him, opening the door of their car, getting into the car, having a conversation about what errand they have to run next, switching on the engine, and driving off. I know writing this all out looks a bit silly, but it's worth considering how many films striving for realism go to great lengths to apply a naturalistic aesthetic to portray 'ordinary' characters doing 'realistic' things to achieve 'realistic' goals, and then skip showing most of the steps in this process. By not doing that Fruitvale Station manages to mirror the tempo of real life, which may be more important for an authentic depiction of daily life than showing ordinary, recognisable events. It only steps wrong twice, once when it flashes back to the previous year, and once when it portrays a foot race between Oscar and his daughter in slow motion.  

Fruitvale Station does not just take place on any random day. It takes place on 31 December and it gets the particular mood and development of that day and the curious experience of doing a lot of stuff whose importance is diminished by the knowledge that everything that's not connected to the nightly celebrations will be swiftly forgotten. More importantly, it gets that New Year's is the closest thing we have to a global shared experience, which means that basically everyone we meet in the film conducts themselves similarly to Oscar and (broadly) shares his mood and mindset. This is true whether they are white, black or any other cultural or racial background. There is nothing Oscar and his friends do differently than the white people we see in the film. But Oscar and his friends are forcibly taken off the train, beaten and harassed until a white cop kills Oscar. That ultimately is what keeps this film politically, not just cinematically, relevant. Through its humane depiction of Oscar it also points out that, all things being equal, black people are much more likely to be killed (or to end up in jail) than white people. 

154. Interview with the Vampire

Song - Mag Het Licht Uit (De Dijk)

Movie: Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994)

Any journalist would be happy to get an interview with a vampire. Especially if that vampire is just eloquent and humane enough to make his story more palatable for the audience. It's rather funny how this film presents all vampires engaging in amoral activities, except for our main man Louis, who, as one of the 'good ones', happens to have something of a conscience and shares 'our' awareness of good and evil and morality. Who knew that Hollywood's formula for depicting (heroic) minorities could also be applied to vampires? 

Joking aside, this is actually a rather good film with a terribly dull performance by Brad Pitt and a fantastic (and completely surprising) one by Tom Cruise. That's not entirely Pitt's fault. Neil Jordan mostly uses him to make the medicine go down, to do cool shit he usually wouldn't get away with. The first hour of this film is almost filled to the brink with grotesque imagery, violent cruelty, sexual deviancy, unseemly metaphors and vampires who unequivocally enjoy all that, with the exception of Pitt's Louis who occasionally chimes in to remind the audience how uncomfortable all that abnormality really made him. Meanwhile, Jordan and Cruise have the time of their lives, playing around with vampire lore, portraying vampires as creatures who receive (and provide) orgasmic pleasure when sucking the blood of their victims. Almost all these scenes are staged to accentuate as much as possible both their sexual connotations and their aggressive violence, without discriminating whether Lestat (Cruise) and Louis bite each other, or another man, woman or child.

Louis may mournfully tell us that he regrets biting 13 year old Claudia (Kirsten Dunst, proving that she was a huge talent from the very beginning), but the film happily shows them sleeping (only sleeping, but still) in a coffin together. Claudia discovers the joys of vampirism going around town with a clear thirst for blood killing older women and men and getting the same orgasmic pleasure out of it as Lestat and Louis do, while the three of them form a surrogate (vampire) family. Cruise portrays Lestat as a combination of a wise, catty diva and an aggressive, cruel macho who enjoys the gleeful immorality of his violence and bloodlust, and only further emphasises these characteristics when performing his 'fatherly' duties to Claudia. Meanwhile, Claudia, who ages over 30 years over the course of the film, but remains in the body of young Kirsten Dunst, jealously watches grown up naked women having bodily features she'll never have. 

After that first hour Lestat mostly disappears from the film, and we follow Louis as he goes from New Orleans to Paris to seek answers to existential questions (Why is he a vampire? Who was the first vampire? How can a vampire be good? Who gives a shit?) and to become a conventional Hollywood hero who takes vengeance on bad vampires. I could live without the solemn earnestness with which these questions are approached. Aside from that, the film also seems to want to address the differences and similarities between colonial America and aristocratic Europe, but that never really coheres into anything. The biggest problem is though that Pitt remains gravely, joylessly uptight through it all. Yet, the film's best scene does take place in Paris, during a theater play in which 'vampires pretending to be humans pretending to be vampires' (Claudia helpfully tells us that is very avant-garde) lure an unknowing actress to her death. Finally, it's worth noting that the film's framing structure is terrible. Louis tells his story in an interview to a journalist played by Christian Slater, but there is absolutely no character, or any kind of, development in these lifeless scenes. Eventually they do set up the great final moments of the film, which should be considered among the highlights of Cruise' career. 

153. The Blue Angel

Song - Du (Peter Maffay)

Movie: The Blue Angel - Der blaue Engel (Josef von Sternberg, 1930)

I didn't expect to see so soon someone get humiliated even worse than Baby Doll's Archie Lee. But Josef von Sternberg ruthlessly transforms Professor Immanuel Rath (Emil Jannings) into an emasculated clown whose obsession with Lola Lola (Marlene Dietrich) ruins his life. She barely has do to anything for it; Dietrich, in her breakthrough role, plays Lola Lola as rather indifferent to her talent, appeal and admirers. The film itself only further encourages this nonchalance. Considering that this was the start of a notorious affair between von Sternberg and Dietrich, it's quite striking how dispassionately she is presented. Beyond one performance of Lola's signature song, during which she is presented fully lit in full frame and in close up, the film doesn't do anything to adorn her or to present her in a way that signals that she is more special than the other characters. 

This approach does fit the film's story. Lola is part of a semi-legal travelling theater troupe specialising in cheap cabaret and even cheaper magic tricks. Lola is its biggest star, which the film quite explicitly presents as her ceiling as a performer. She is presented (and presents herself) as a decent singer and a decent dancer with just enough charm and talent to take some money out of the pockets of naive high-schoolers. Professor Rath, at wits' end that his students are so enthralled by such lowlife pleasures, one day goes into the club ('The Blue Angel') where she performs to confront everybody. Of course he ends up in love with Lola (who doesn't really actively seduce him, nor does she seem to love him very much. For her their relationship appears to be mostly transactional) and decides to marry her, losing his job as a professor.  Travelling with the theater troupe, he is forced to sell pictures of Lola to disinterested audiences in shady bars, while Lola is happily flirting with customers. As he is miserably assisting Lola, in a wonderful transition depicting the abrupt passage of time, the film  cuts to five years later when an equally miserable Roth is putting on clown's make up. What he doesn't yet know is that the biggest humiliation still awaits him: performing as a mediocre magician's assistant in The Blue Angel in his old home town. 

The downfall of the professor represents such an abrupt shift in tone for the film (which was up until then a rather lighthearted comedy) and is so mercilessly executed by von Sternberg that it almost makes you forget the somewhat disappointing first half of the film. While I was not a fan of Dietrich's blasé performance I can see the appeal. Not so with Emil Jannings, who spends much of the film's early scenes mugging and making annoyed faces signaling his uptightness, with the film not very interested in exploring any other aspect of his character. In many of those scenes it is also noticeable that this is a film made in the midst of the transition from the silent to the sound era. Several scenes are staged in such a way that you are either waiting for someone to say something or to do something dramatic (or for an intertitle to appear telling us what is happenning). But because no clear choice is made and the timing is off, there are several instances in which characters are standing around awkwardly without much happenning. While this is a bit annoying, it's also quite interesting to see filmmakers struggle with the possibilities of film in real time. Also interesting is von Sternberg's lovely use of 'callbacks', such as the train whistle, the sound of a chirping bird, and the empty schooldesks. All of these sounds/images appear twice or more in the film, and are used cleverly to depict the emotional state of Professor Roth. 

152. The Night of the Hunter

Song - Take On Me (A-Ha)

Movie: The Night of the Hunter (Charles Laughton, 1955)

Well, here is a film in which a false prophet shakes up a religious village community without exposing the hypocrisy of the religious village community. In fact, it is a pious woman who studiously applies the teachings of the Bible in her daily life who saves the day. I am a wholly non-religious person who would agree with most criticisms of most religious institutions, but, by and large, contemporary art and entertainment dealing with religion does so in a mostly abstract way using religious communities and people as strawmen without any interest in how they lead their lives and how their religious values shape their practices, habits and daily lives. The Night of the Hunter is not only interested in that, but is also I think a good example of the idea that the characters/community you show in your film should like the film you are making. 

Beyond being a depiction of a Depression-era Christian village community in the Appalachian mountains, you get the feeling that if the people depicted in The Night of the Hunter were asked to make a film about a misogynist serial killer invading their village by pretending to be a priest, the resulting film would look and feel very much like The Night of the Hunter. The films often seems to look at good and evil, childhood and parenthood, men, women, love and death from the point of view of the community at its center. I may be wrong about this, but the strangest thing about this film is the discrepancy between its portrayal of the community and Robert Mitchum's performance as Harry Powell. Its depiction of village life is precisely judged and specific with even the speech patterns of the townspeople, and their folksy humor and attitudes, feeling authentic to that particular place. Equally impressive is its understanding of how life in the village is completely shaped by its proximity to the river and its belief in God. These are the two most important 'institutions' in the village and nothing anyone does is fully independent from one or both of them. All of this is depicted in a rather naturalistic style. The mysterious and expressionist elements of the film only come to the forefront in the presence of Powell. 

Powell's characterisation (and Mitchum's performance) is all over the place. The ease with which he can control and manipulate Willa Harper (Shelley Winters) for example is fully at odds with his complete inability to do the same to her children. A scene in which he unsuccessfully chases them across the cellar almost feels like it could come from a slapstick film. It seems inconceivable that he can't get what he wants from them. But he is a force that the village can't understand and so we can't either. And maybe for the same reason we don't actually see any of his murders. Interestingly, we also do not see Ben Harper's (the kids' father) lynching, but the film does find time to show the responsible warden coming home to his wife reflecting on and regretting what happened, unable to see much sense in it. It's an example of the film's humanism, consistently emphasizing the vulnerability of people, children and animals. There is a sequence here in which Willa's children go on a nightly voyage along the Ohio River to escape from Harry Powell. During the voyage Laughton constantly cuts between them and the animals along the riverbank, implying that all creatures in the world are in this together. The film takes the existence of God as a given, but does not necessarily believe that following God's rules will make you survive evil. Not on your own anyway; evil will always appear somewhere on the dark horizon, singing creepy songs. But if you find yourself a loving family and community you just might make it.  

151. Baby Doll

Song - Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin)

Movie: Baby Doll (Elia Kazan, 1956)

In my write-up of And God Created Women I joked that in the fight for youth culture's attention the French upstaged the Americans by presenting Brigitte Bardot as a sort of combination of Marilyn Monroe and James Dean. I did not know then that Baby Doll, released in the same year, is equally explicit about the rebelliousness and sexuality of its female lead, while being a far better, funnier and (t)hornier film. On the one hand that should not be a surprise; Elia Kazan, Tennessee Williams and Carroll Baker are an obvious upgrade over Roger Vadim, Raoul Lévy and Brigitte Bardot. On the other hand it goes against current preconceptions that a film made and set in rural Mississippi by people working within the Hollywood studio system is steamier and more liberated than a film made and set in St. Tropez. Baby Doll is basically a black comedy that treats rural Mississippians as ordinary people with flaws, desires and inconsistencies around which you can create a sexy and darkly funny yarn, rather than as easily digestible (political) symbols.

If you don't believe me that this is a great film, take it from the Catholic Church. It condemned the film for being a "moral danger" and for its "carnal suggestiveness" that offended traditional standards of "morality and decency." This campaign nearly sunk the film, as theaters started removing it from their slate. While the censorious instincts of the Catholic Church are wrong, its assessment of the film is correct. And you can't really blame the Church for being behind with the times. If Baby Doll were released today, it would likely be among the most controversial films of the year. It introduces the 19-year old 'Baby Doll' Meighan as she is sleeping in a crib, sucking her thumb. She is watched from a peephole in the adjacent room by her much older husband Archie Lee (Karl Malden) who is waiting for her to turn 20 (in three days) so they can finally consummate their marriage. Baby Doll may be of legal age (and Carroll Baker was 25 at the film's release), but she is presented as emotionally and educationally immature and is often shot to appear much younger (as in the aforementioned crib scene). The film directly connects this immaturity to her attractiveness, and then complicates it by making her smarter and worldlier than her husband, and in better control of her sexual desires. Even before Silva Vacarro (Eli Wallach), the most successful cotton farmer in the region, comes into the picture you get the feeling that it's highly unlikely Archie Lee, who is forced to sell their entire furniture when his cotton business goes downhill, will get what he wants on Baby Doll's 20th birthday. 

When Silva's cotton gin burns down, he quickly deduces who has been the culprit and makes his way to the Meighan's. There, Archie Lee tries to sell him his cotton, acting like he is doing him a favor as a good neighbor, in the process creating a situation where he has to leave his 'Sicilian' rival alone with his wife on the farm. It is immediately obvious that there is much more sexual attraction between them than between Baby Doll and her husband. Aware of this, Silva starts seducing her, first in a long menacing sequence where they circle around each other on the porch, while the camera moves closer and closer in on them until you feel that Baby Doll can't escape either the frame or Silva's grip, leaving her both deeply uncomfortable and deeply aroused. This is followed by another long sequence, this time a hilariously executed childlike game of hide and seek around the furniture-less house where it's never clear to what extent Baby Doll enjoys herself and sees this as a flirty game with a sexy Italian she is attracted to, and to what extent she is terrified. Throughout all this, Carroll Baker is presented in the most attractive way that a shot will allow. The film wants you to feel about Baby Doll in the same way that the characters in the film feel about her.  

Finally, Silva manages to contrive a situation that forces Baby Doll to sign an affidavit testifying that Archie Lee did indeed burn down his cotton gin. But is that all he wants? Has he not fallen in love with Baby Doll too? The ambiguity of Silva's intentions up until the film's end leads to a couple of wonderful final lines. These should not overshadow the rest of the film's dialogue. It feels authentic, while being heavily stylised and literate. I am one of those people who very much likes it when a film's origins as a play are obvious and greatly enjoyed the archness of some of the dialogue, and how much the film is in love with its showy sentences. Elia Kazan makes sure to highlight it, always ceding the attention to the screenplay (It definitely made me want to read more stuff by Tennessee Williams) and the actors. Eli Wallach and Carroll Baker are especially great, building on each other's performances to create two incredibly charismatic and memorable characters. They have great chemistry together and never allow us to get a fully conclusive understanding of their characters' intentions, motivations and feelings, in part because they know that Baby Doll and Silva themselves are not really sure about their intentions, motivations and feelings. 

While the film film's greatest pleasures are more attributable to Williams and the actors, it's hard to argue that Elia Kazan doesn't assert himself. This is very much a film made from an immigrant's point of view, gleefully making fun of 'the American, traditional way of life', while emphasising the intelligence and casual nonchalance of Silva, especially in comparison to the other characters in the film. Apart from being cuckolded by Silva in plain view (while also losing his cook to him), Karl Malden's Archie Lee is humiliated in other ways throughout the film. Whenever he makes a mistake at the farm, Kazan cuts to the black farm workers ridiculing him. In town, Chinese immigrants laugh at him for his sexless marriage. At the doctor's, the assistant with the foreign accent is scolding him for being late and at the end of the film he is incensed at the sheriff for being treated like a black man in custody. There is no scene in the film in which Archie Lee doesn't get the short end of the stick, and his steadily growing frustration and desperation is among the funniest aspects of the film. There is definitely some schadenfreude and pettiness involved in this portrayal, but Kazan is also not entirely unsympathetic to his plight, knowing that the times are changing fast. and that the safeguards that were always protecting people like him are suddenly disappearing. Archie can't adjust and ends the film with no sex, no wife, no money, no hair, no furniture, no cook, no cotton, and no black folks who will pick it for him.