MY MOVIE SHELF: Superman

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 99 Days to go: 66

Movie #341:  Superman

It’s been a really long time since I’ve seen this movie, and with all the other superhero movies flooding the market these days, it’s easy to forget how simply brilliant this one is. Not only was Superman the first of its kind (to my knowledge), it was also expertly executed, making it still one of the best. It is unequivocally the best (and my favorite) depiction of the character thus far.

Incredibly, before they ever knew if the film would be a success, they filmed Superman simultaneously with Superman II, and the entire opening segment of the film is merely a setup of the sequel — establishing the villain General Zod (Terence Stamp) and company, as well as their fate of being sealed in a floating pane of glass hurling through space for all eternity. It’s a fascinating sequence, but it really serves no purpose in this original film — the establishment of the nature and fate of the planet Krypton could be handled entirely by the scenes that come after these three are incarcerated — and it’s quite an ambitious (and expensive) leap of faith by the filmmakers to include it. It doesn’t pay off at all in Superman, so it’s pretty fantastic people were willing to take a gamble on it, because it pays off big time in Superman II.

But enough about that.

Superman doesn’t really feel like an origin story film, and yet it spends nearly half the film on his origin — on Krypton, in Smallville, and through to the Fortress of Solitude. That it doesn’t feel nearly as long as it is, is a testament to its excellent pacing.  The film moves easily from one story beat to the next, each scene serving a specific purpose of characterization or history or plot development. Nothing is really wasted or superfluous. Even the expository scene when Jor-El (Marlon Brando, as committed to this role as he was to any other) is imparting all the history of their planet and people to his son in the Fortress, is very efficient. Set against an evolving space-scape visual, Jor-El’s instruction fades in and over itself as topics change and time moves on, indicating that when Clark (Christopher Reeve) steps onto the streets of Metropolis, it’s twelve years later and he’s a much more mature, confident being. Not that he expresses that outwardly.

I’ve always been sort of fascinated by the nebbish Clark Kent, Superman’s human disguise, who is meant to be quiet, unassuming, and virtually unnoticed. It’s always been a bit of a joke that nobody notices he’s just Superman with glasses on, and yet Reeve really does a great job of looking different in each costume. Superman stands tall and firm. Everything about him, from his voice to his stare, is steady and assured. Clark hunches. Clark twitches. Clark fumbles. Clark stutters. Clark squints. Everything about Clark is unassured and hesitant. In Kill Bill Volume 2, Bill (David Carradine) has a long monologue about the nature of Superman — about how the man in the cape is who he really is, and how Clark is the disguise. He makes the point that Clark is how Superman sees humans, that we’re all a fumbling, stumbling lot. I don’t really think that’s true. It implies a certain condescension on Superman’s part toward the people he’s vowed to protect. Rather, I think Clark is how Superman sees the most invisible of us. He’s us at our weakest. Superman doesn’t want to be found out as Clark Kent, so he portrays himself as less than us, not equal.

Of course, you can hardly talk about Superman without also talking about Lois Lane (Margot Kidder), and just as this Superman is my favorite of all the ones out there, so is this my favorite Lois. Kidder plays the role so breezily. Her Lois is strong, smart and confident, but she also has weaknesses — only not in the typical “damsel in distress” way. Lois is observant and insightful, but also flighty and distracted. She’s a whip smart reporter but a terrible speller. She’s bold enough to ask Superman the color of her panties, but bashful enough to get flustered when he answers. She’s not afraid to yell at someone or complain when she’s upset, but she’s grateful and gracious and in awe of Superman’s help and presence. And when she meets her demise, it’s not passively. She claws and fights and screams to save herself. It hardly matters that she’s not successful.

The rest of the casting is incredibly satisfying and on point, as well, be it Jackie Cooper as Perry White or Marc McClure as Jimmy Olsen, both of whom seem to perfectly epitomize their characters comic book personas. And the trio of earthly villains — a delightful Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor, a hilariously inept Ned Beatty as Otis, and the beautiful, breathy, somewhat hopeful/somewhat mournful Valerie Perrine as Miss Teschmacher — are murderous thieves who nonetheless are portrayed with a light, playful touch that mirrors the tone of the film at large. (Thankfully, unlike more recent Superman films, this one is not nearly as dark, as brooding, or as depressingly destructive.)

In all, Superman is an extraordinarily fun film — a triumphant story of good over evil. It emphasizes everything we love about the character with his amazing powers and his good-hearted desire to do right by the American people. It’s an overwhelmingly positive message of hope and fantasy and right prevailing over wrong. And even with all the advances in special effects over the years, I still think it’s one of the best superhero films of all time.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: A Streetcar Named Desire

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 114 Days to go: 78

Movie #326:  A Streetcar Named Desire

I’m not sure it’s possible to live in America and not come across a pop culture reference to A Streetcar Named Desire without living in a cave or joining an extremely insular cult community. I meet neither of those stipulations, so I’ve come across several references to it over the years. Just last month, even, my husband and I went to New Orleans for my birthday, stayed in a hotel that boasted the patronage of playwright Tennessee Williams, and were even pointed out the balcony on which Williams wrote the play during a tour of the French Quarter. (It was innocuous, and might as well have been any old balcony in the French Quarter.) I never managed to actually see the production, though.

I knew of the play, of course, and I was aware how revered both the stage and the screen versions have been. And like I said, you can hardly escape a reference to it. So despite not having seen the film, it still felt familiar. Blanche DuBois (Vivien Leigh) was like a long-lost family member, and even though I’d never personally interacted with her, I knew to think of her kindly, to handle her with kid gloves. She’s not well, after all. And Stanley (Marlon Brando), well, for now let’s just say that I was aware of the t-shirt that launched a million Hanes commercials, and I knew going in that he was of a, uh, passionate nature. But I didn’t really know all the details, and now that I do, I’m glad I never watched this before.

Stanley Kowalski, to not put too fine a point on it, is a violent, awful, detestable man. He has a fierce, irrational, brutish temper, he hits his wife, he rapes his sister-in-law, and he basically thinks he has a right to his behavior because he’s a man and he’s the king and blah blah abuser bullshit excuses forever. Even worse, I think the story intends for him to be more sympathetic than Blanche is. It wants you to look down on her, just as he does. It wants you to see him as all unrestrained sex appeal — if a bit of a bad boy — just as Stella does. Animalistic, they call him, like there’s a sort of primitive compliment lurking in the word. Stella is drawn to him like a magnet. Yes, Stella leaves him at the end of the film, but who knows how long that will last? A day? Maybe less? Even when Stella stands up to Stanley, she quickly relents. I’d like to think she never goes back to him, but the fact of the matter is it’d be harder to leave him with a baby and it would’ve been to leave him before, and she didn’t leave him before.

Blanche is the only one who really stands up to Stanley, who ever calls him out on his unacceptable behavior, but she’s disregarded in his eyes and eventually in the eyes of most everyone else because she’s mentally unstable. In my mind, however, Blanche DuBois is a feminist icon. Sure, she puts on airs and has a strong distaste for the low-class Stanley, his coarse ways and the poor standard of living he and her sister are stuck in, but more than that she detests him for bullying her and Stella. And when he hits Stella, she insists Stella leave and never come back. Even if her argument is that his behavior is uncivilized, at least she recognizes it as wrong, which is more than I can say for pretty much everyone else in the film.

Beyond that, though, Blanche is also a woman with a past. And she’s punished for that past, again and again. But when push comes to shove (figuratively, for the real attack comes a bit later), she admits she’s had lovers over the years. Why shouldn’t she? She was a widow, depressed and abandoned and alone, and so she welcomed the interests men who would soothe that loneliness. Big freaking deal. Only it is, because she’s a woman. So she gets fired from her job and driven out of her hometown, and when she finally finds a relationship with Mitch (Karl Malden) that is sweet and considerate and mutually beneficial, Stanley ruins that for her too, out of spite. Then he twists the knife by viciously attacking her, raping her, and turning her normally jittery anxiety into a full-out mental breakdown. (Not that Mitch was much better. When he hears of her past and declares her “not clean enough” to marry, there’s a moment when it’s clear he intends to take what he feels he deserves, before she frightens him away with her outburst.) So what if she’s touched in the head? So what if she deludes herself with stories or doesn’t have a firm grasp on reality? She knows that people should be treated with courtesy and respect, she demands it of those around her — especially toward herself and her sister — and she deeply regrets and is forever haunted by the one moment she feels she was too unkind. I have a lot of empathy for Blanche, and I wish she’d been treated as well as she deserved.

The performances in the film are exquisite, and Marlon Brando really does look great in that t-shirt. The actors are all at the top of their games, perfectly conveying the trouble in their minds and thoughts above and beyond the dialogue of a given scene. I even love how Vivien Leigh with blonde hair seems so far removed from, and yet also oddly similar to, her Scarlet O’Hara character (both are insanely focused on their weights). But as much as I can respect it on its merits (and there are many), A Streetcar Named Desire is not for me. I would simply keep wishing for Stanley to get thrown down that flight of stairs, and the more it didn’t happen, the more frustrated and insane I’d become. Honestly, maybe that’s why Blanche eventually lost it: she’s tormented and abused and assaulted and humiliated and about to be thrown out on her ass and he’s still walking around like the king of the hill. I’d probably have a psychotic break too.

 

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Godfather Part II

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 251 Days to go: 254

Movie #126: The Godfather Part II

It’s long been posited (and upheld) in film circles that The Godfather Part II is at least as good as, if not better than, The Godfather. It’s easy to see why. Though twenty-five minutes longer than the original, The Godfather Part II moves faster and is paced better than the first. And in telling two parallel stories — that of Vito’s (Robert De Niro) past in Italy and rise to power in New York, and of Michael’s (Al Pacino) expansion of and further entrenchment within his crime syndicate even as he hopes to legitimize the family — it has a more balanced structure than The Godfather, which was extremely front-heavy and somewhat sloppy and haphazard for the final third. The Godfather Part II is compelling on all fronts, making it deserving of the first ever Best Picture Oscar win for a sequel, though it’s hard to tell what kind of acclaim it would’ve gotten had The Godfather never existed and this film stood on its own. Would it have felt incomplete? Perhaps. There’s a lot of world-building happening in the first that the second relies on, but for the most part it stands apart as its own film fairly well.

Robert De Niro, it must be said, is by far the most fascinating character of the film. His performance is riveting and flawless. Somehow he manages to embody Vito Corleone almost better than Marlon Brando did. He comes off as calmer, stronger, more centered and even more devoted to his family than Brando did in the original film. And with the addition of Bruno Kirby as young Clemenza and John Aprea as Young Tessio (played by Richard Castellano and Abe Vigoda in the later years), the early life of Vito Corleone is a two-hour film in itself that I would happily watch. It is the strongest and most consistently gripping part of this movie.

Michael’s struggles in 1958, however, are compelling in their own right. Instead of the outside rivalries facing them in The Godfather, the family is roaring with internal conflict in the sequel. Kay (Diane Keaton) has become frustrated and weary with Michael’s continued illegal activities, despite his promise years earlier to legitimize the family business. Connie (Talia Shire) still hasn’t forgiven her brother for Carlo’s (Gianni Russo) murder, and has been depressed and moody and defiant ever since. And Fredo’s (John Cazale) feelings of being slighted and disrespected by everyone have only festered over the years he’s spent in Nevada. Only Tom (Robert Duvall) remains loyal to Michael, though he even voices strong disagreement with him at times. The familial dynamics and politics are much more intriguing than the roundabout dealings and betrayals concerning Hyman Roth (Lee Strasberg), Johnny Ola (Dominic Chianese) and Frankie Pentangeli (Michael Gazzo), or anything that happens with the Senate committee or the FBI, possibly because sibling rivalries and power struggles are far more universal and relatable than the government pursuit of the mafia. Michael’s confrontation and conflict with Fredo is powerful, heartbreaking and iconic. And his split with Kay (particularly her revelation about her abortion) is even more so.

The one quibble I have is that the interweaving tales of Vito and Michael aren’t evenly spaced. Some segments are too long, while others are too short, giving the impression that the movie has spent too much or too little time with a particular half of the tale before moving back to the other. It’s once again an editing/structure issue of Coppola’s, but in this case it’s a far less cumbersome one, making The Godfather Part II, in my opinion a superior film than its predecessor.

MY MOVIE SHELF: The Godfather

The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015.  Remaining movies: 252 Days to go: 254

Movie #125: The Godfather

What Francis Ford Coppola really needs is an editor.

The Godfather is an amazing film — beautifully shot, powerfully acted, and epic in both scale and theme. Simply gorgeous, and I mean that. But it is unconscionably long. The movie could’ve been cut down by an hour, easily.

Take, for instance, the entire foray into Sicily and Michael’s (Al Pacino) courtship of Apollonia (Simonetta Stefanelli). Why is this here? Yes, it’s a beautiful and fascinating segment, illustrating Michael’s embracing of the traditional family and his place therein, but that could be conveyed simply from his murder of Sollozzo (Al Lettieri) and McCluskey (Sterling Hayden). The time-lapse could be handled via exposition when Michael meets back up with Kay (Diane Keaton), the same way it’s already used to let the audience know he’s been back for a year. Maybe establish a shot of him in Sicily, and maybe another for when he gets the news of Sonny’s (James Caan) death, but the rest is completely unnecessary. I mean, he winds back up with Kay anyway. He doesn’t indicate he married anyone else in Sicily or that he’s a widower. It never comes up, so why does it need to happen at all?

Another problem — whether it has anything to do with the Sicily segment is up for debate, but it doesn’t crop up until after that point — is the pacing is all off. From the opening of the movie at Connie (Talia Shire) and Carlo’s (Gianni Russo) wedding, The Godfather is meticulously paced, spending a lot of time at the wedding and building the universe of the Corleone family. We are introduced to all the main players: Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) holds court for guests needing favors or paying respect. Consigliere Tom Hagen (Robert Duvall) is a trusted advisor and treated like a son by Vito and brother by Sonny and Michael. Vito’s other son Fredo (John Cazale), however, doesn’t seem to have as much pull or garner as much respect from anyone there. As the movie progresses and business is carried out, the Sollozzo business deal comes up and the focus shifts to that particular deal and everything that comes from it. Vito is shot, and hotheaded Sonny wants to go to war after Michael barely keeps Vito from being ambushed at the hospital. But that wouldn’t be wise, so he, Michael and Tom plan Sollozzo’s murder. Everything that happens in this whole first act, all the way up to Michael dropping the gun as he hurries out the door of the restaurant, is very deliberate. One thing happens, then another, then another. There are no big gaps in time or events that have been glossed over. After this point, however, the movie is full of them. Michael spends something like a year in Sicily, and when he meets Kay again he’s been back another whole year working for his father. He asks her to marry him and before you know it they have a toddler and Michael’s been the head of the family for some time. It’s almost as if everything that happens after the Sollozzo/McCluskey incident is epilogue — epilogue after epilogue after epilogue. There are significant turns of events in these scenes — Sonny’s murder, Vito’s death, Michael’s trip to Vegas, the baptism juxtaposed with the hits on the heads of the other families — but they feel tacked on, like afterthoughts. It’s almost as if they should be in a sequel of their own.

I’ve attempted to watch The Godfather many, many times, but this is actually the first time I’ve ever seen the whole thing in a single block. Usually I fall asleep and have to pick it up again later. That almost certainly destroys any cinephile cred I might ever have hoped to have had, but it also doesn’t necessarily reflect too well on a film that is largely regarded as a masterpiece. The thing is, though, it is a masterpiece. Of that I have no doubt. It’s an amazing, incredible film. But it’s still too freaking long.