248. Wall Street

Song - Money (Pink Floyd)

Movie: Wall Street (Oliver Stone, 1987)

The phone rings, followed by a pulsating drum beat announcing excitement and danger. Half asleep, Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) picks up to be greeted by "Money never sleeps, pal". Gordon Gekko (Micheal Douglas) is on the other end of the line hyping his protégé up with arrogantly confident wisecracks about how much money and sex he will provide him with, until the sunrise stops him in his tracks. Awestruck he exclaims "I've never seen a painting that captures the beauty of the ocean in a moment like this". He says it with an affected emphasis aimed to seduce Bud, but that doesn't make his sense of wonder less genuine. The scene ends with a half-dressed, speechless, heavily breathing Bud, and the return of that fabulous drum motif, that appears in a number of scenes, and always for just a couple of seconds. Just enough to excite you for what's coming, and to want more of it. 

The sunrise described by Gordon Gekko is decent. But Stone's filmmaking choices (and Douglas' acting choices) make you feel that the sunrise is indeed the greatest goddamn sunrise the world has ever seen. And when, in another scene, Charlie Sheen quotes Art of War back to Michael Douglas, you will almost forget that they have just been humiliatingly put in their place by a rich British aristocrat, played by Terence Stamp. By the time the camera glides past the sksyscrapers of the Upper East Side and Bud notes that "this is home" in a montage set to the Talking Heads nobody will even think of Stamp, or the (im)morality of Wall Street trading anymore. In no way is this a knock on the film, which I abslolutely loved. Stone wants to put you in the mindset of Bud Fox, and to a lesser extent, Gordon Gekko, to evoke how it feels to be in the position they are in, or rather, believe themselves to be. Gekko, and in his footsteps, Fox, are influential Wall Street businessman with a lot of money, power, connections and access. Though the film explores this, it is equally, if not more, interested in how this reality distorts their worldview and makes them experience life as if they are untouchable giants on top of the world. It's absolutely intoxicating and when Stone and Douglas tell they are surprised by real Wall Street traders telling them that Gordon Gekko is their hero, they should not be believed for a second. The film is designed to elicit exactly that reaction, at least until the moment Gekko wrecks Bluestar, and the film puts Martin Sheen's (I like that he plays Charlie's dad) perspective more to the foreground. 

The famous "Greed is Good" line is one of those moments people like to cite when discussing how easily audiences miss the point of the film. Douglas' lines though come in the context of a longer speech in which he theatirically complains about the decline of America as an industrial nation, but is spot on (even when looking from a more leftist perspective!) about the issue at hand, namely that a corporation shouldn't have 30 vice-presidents who are nothing but symbolic paper pushing figureheads producing nothing, yet earning millions of dollars in salary. If greed is the opposite of that, as Gekko implies, it's at least not bad. Gekko also proceeds to note that greed in all its forms is good, not just greed for money, but also for life, knowledge, and love. And well, who can argue that greed for knowledge is bad? Of course, it's ridiculous for Gekko to put his greed in oppoistion to the greed of the vice-presidents, but there is a lot more going on the scene than just "look at this capitalist idiot, propagating that greed is good, when greed is, in fact, bad." This is even further complicated by the fact that Oliver Stone is just about the least modest mainstream filmmaker out there. The man will exploit every filmmaking resource he has at his disposal to make his movie, and more often than not, it's damn good. 

Daryl Hannah is also good. She got a Razzie Award for her role, and though it's been well documented by now that the Razzie folks are nothing more than attention-seeking smug bastards, neither the cast and crew of Wall Street nor herself were very happy with her role and performance. It suprised me to find that out, because she is really the one character that embodies both the seductiveness of Wall Street life and its rottenness. She is essentially a high-class prostitute 'used' by Gordon Gekko to lure young folks like Bud into his inner circle. She can't escape this life, but also enjoys it. She gets to express herself as an interior designer, and genuinely falls in love with Bud. Yet she also knows that she only has as much freedom as Gekko allows her, all of which gets to the forefront in her final, fantasitcally written and performed, scene with Bud.  She is the film's most complex character, and I don't think it would be nearly as great without her.

247. First Spaceship on Venus

Song - The Final Countdown (Europe)

Movie: First Spaceship on Venus - Der schweigende Stern (Kurt Maetzig, 1960)

American professor Hawling is part of an international crew of scientists, engineers and astronauts on a spaceship bound for Venus. When not working, he likes to play chess against his fellow passengers, usually beating them soundly. The one opponent he can't defeat is the ship's robot Omega. After the umpteenth mate, Sumiko, the Japanese doctor on board, confronts Saltyk, the Polish developer of the robot. She explains that while Omega may be an impressive technical feat of machinery, it lacks a heart. Saltyk listens to her, rewires Omega, and when the robot lets the professor beat it, a rejuvenated Hawling immediately starts bragging to his team about his great chess prowess, completely oblivious to what has happened. 

This little subplot is a good example of the film's good-natured corniness, for better and for worse. It's easy to feel sympathetic towards a film that has such a sincerely utopian view of the potential of peaceful international cooperation to improve humanity. We are told that beyond just discovering extraterrestrial life, the Earth's greatest minds on board of the ship are also close to eradicating hunger and physical labor. The world will then see the value of international, interracial solidarity (worth noting though that the black passenger on the ship is the only one without a nationality - he is 'African' - and the only one who speaks German with an accent) and come together to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons and end the Cold War. But the film is afraid to make any interesting/fun/artistic choice that could distract it from bringing its message across. The acting and the dialogues are so wooden that the actors may as well stand in front of a Powerpoint and give a presentation. 

I didn't realise this before watching it, but this is a film produced by DEFA, the state-owned film studio of East Germany. That does put the punch-line of the chess story in a different view. In an American film this would have been a pointed, sharp joke that's worth thinking about. In this context, it is state-approved messaging, regurgigated propaganda that's not even ferocious enough to work as serious criticism (the film's many reminders that the Americans are responsible for Hiroshima are at least a bit saltier). Now, some would argue that on the global political stage, even during the Cold War, the Americans were the biggest power 'colonising' the world with their culture and their capitalism, and that the communist state-produced films were a subversive corrective to that. But that glesses over the question of why the Americans were/are more succesfull in promoting their culture and lifestyle to the rest of the world. Part of the answer is that you will see in American movies jokes about dumb Americans that are critical of the very fundaments of American life. In First Spaceship on Venus there is not a single lighthearted moment that would allow for even a little doubt or ridicule of a communist idea. 

246. A Canterbury Tale

Song - Solsbury Hill (Peter Gabriel)

Movie: A Canterbury Tale (Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger, 1944)

Allison Smith's (Sheila Sim) plans are altered the moment she gets out of the train station in Chillingbourne. She has come to the (fictional) town as a Land Girl, a woman called on to work on a farm to replace the men off fighting the war, only to become the latest victim of a mysterious figure who sneaks up on women in the dark and puts glue in their hair. Together with Peter Gibbs (Dennis Price) and Bob Johnson (John Sweet, an actual sergeant in his only acting role), respectively a British and an American soldier, she sets out to uncover the identity of the "glue man". 

A Canterbury Tale can't reach the great heights of A Matter of Life and Death (few things can), but it does share its genuine love of people, and their interactions. There are many movies (that present themselves to be) about the importance of human connection, but it's much rarer for a movie to be about the process of human connection. There is a short scene where Bob is calling his buddy in London to tell him he is delayed, He is observed from the background by a bemused Peter. There is no deeper meaning or subtext to this scene. It is simply about how wonderful it is to express interest in what your friend is up to, and more generally, how wonderful it is to be willing to engage with the world around you and feel at ease in doing so. It does matter here that Allison, Bob and Peter are all presented with poise, confidence and earnestness, qualities that Powell and Pressburger seem to find vital for being able to experience and approach the world and the people in it with comfort, curiosity, joy and moral seriousness. Above all else, expressing how great it is to be able to be like that, is what both A Canterbury Tale and A Matter of Life and Death are utimately about. 

I wonder if A Canterbury Tale influenced Twin Peaks. In particular the relationship between Bob and Peter almost plays as a blueprint for Dale Cooper and Sheriff Truman. The development of their friendship is as important for them as solving Laura's murder/finding the identity of the glue man, but more than that, it's about their heightened awareness of how fulfilling it is to behave in ways that give you the opportunity to experience the joys of humanity (including damn good tea/coffee!). Both Twin Peaks and A Canterbury Tale see this as a sacred, miraculous experience, that is crucial to be able to withstand, though not necessarily defeat, the ultimate evil, whether that's BOB, or Nazi's. In Twin Peaks this is mostly communicated through the shamelessly melodramatic formal choices; in A Canterbury Tale mostly through the performances and the constant reminders of the spiritual context around Canterbury. The film insists that the characters are not only aware of their connection to each other, but also to the nature and history of their surroundings, seeing them as basically direct descendants of the pilgrims of Chaucer's time.  

What stops the film from greatness is that the glue man is essentially a stand-in for Powell and Pressburger. Once caught, he explains that he wants to stop the women from going out with the soldiers in town. His reasoning has nothing to do with the war effort or with sexual morality. Rather, he is simply a raconteur who has always dreamt of preaching about the history of Canterbury, without being able to find a right audience. Now that his little town is filled to the brink with bored soldiers, he can finally fulfiill his dream explaining Canterbury's special place in the history of England. The film itself is even preachier. Almost every plot point ultimately serves to teach a moral, practical or historic lesson, with the overarching message being that Americans and Britons have much in common, and should be friends who work together to make the world a better place, whether that entails unmasking the glue man or beating the Nazi's. Some of these scenes are really infantilising, in both content and form. For example a point about the idiocy of American isolationists is disguised as a joke to not come off as cheap propaganda, but it is so blatantly the latter that the attempt to disguise it only makes a very valid argument come off as insidious manipulation.