The Welles Of Discontent. Orson Welles: The Great Directors Retrospective



1915-1985

ORSON WELLES

When I think of Orson Welles, it is a tragedy that his true genius has been obscured by his girth.  Of all the great filmmakers, the case of Orson Welles is perhaps, the saddest. Few directors have created such a powerful debut, yet few have had an equally powerful descent into, not so much obscurity as parody.

To my mind, when I think of Welles I think of Icarus.  He flew too close to the sun and ended up crashing into the sea.  Welles reached the greatest heights, but then he fell, slowly, steadily, due to circumstances both exterior and interior, only to crash as a punchline and a man of many guest shots. 

What director wouldn't want his debut film to be hailed as the greatest film ever made?  Such was Orson Welles' fortune when Citizen Kane debuted.   The critics went wild, and with good measure: Citizen Kane is the standard to which all film is held to.   It is simply a film that changed everything, and I figure Welles must have thought highly of the praise Citizen Kane received, and it was one more thing that people praised him for. 

In retrospect, I wonder if Welles ever thought that perhaps making 'the greatest film ever made' meant that every other film he would make could ever match it, let alone top it.  According to Peter Bogdanovich, theater impresario Billy Rose told Welles to quit films.  "You'll never top it," he was warned.

Icarus takes flight.

Welles fought long and hard to get Citizen Kane released despite the smear campaign by the inspiration for Charles Foster Kane: William Randolph Hearst.  He had put so much into it: his directing, his acting, his writing (along with Herman Mankiewicz), that to see it brought down would not have just been intellectually immoral, but would probably have wounded Welles on a personal level.  However, I digress to wonder what would have happened if Welles had tackled The Magnificent Ambersons first. 

Certainly Hearst wouldn't have bothered with Orson Welles as a person or artist.  RKO would not have disemboweled the film (he did have full artistic control in his contract, a rarity in Hollywood).  It might have ended up the way Welles would have wanted it to have been seen, not the way the studio thought it should have been.  It might have all been different in terms of his career (i.e. allowed him to have a more productive one). 

Instead, there was an arrogance to Welles, that he thought he could take on one of the most powerful men in the world and strip him bare for all the world to see.  Hearst could have tolerated this upstart making fun of him and showing him to be a bitter old man, but by mocking his mistress Marion Davies (in the character of talentless shrewish drunk Susan Alexander) and worse, by throwing Hearst's alleged pet name for her special part (Rosebud) all over the film, it was waving a red flag in front of a bull.

Icarus comes too close to the sun.

While Welles survived the campaign against him by Hearst, the cost was exceptionally high.  The power Hearst had over a frightened and cowered Hollywood cost Citizen Kane all the awards it deserved: certainly Best Picture, Bernard Herrmann for his memorable score*,  and Gregg Toland for his innovative cinematography went without an Oscar because the Academy members were taking out their anger about all the problems Citizen Kane had caused them on the nominees.   In fact, out of nine nominations it received only one Oscar: Best Original Screenplay (and according to the documentary The Battle Over Citizen Kane, that Oscar was more for Mankiewicz than for Citizen Kane itself).

Kane had proved such a headache for RKO that for Welles' next film, The Magnificent Ambersons, they weren't about to let him run wild again.  Thus, when he left for South America to film the documentary It's All True, the bigwigs saw The Magnificent Ambersons and decided to 'improve' it (or make it more to their idea of a movie).  It should be mentioned that Welles left for South American BEFORE finishing editing The Magnificent Ambersons, and thus, giving RKO the entry it needed.  In the end, the final film, while still extremely impressive, was not what Welles imagined.  To add insult to injury, It's All True was left incomplete, and some of the footage Welles shot (including color footage of Rio de Janiero's Carnaval) was eventually dumped into the Pacific Ocean.

Now with The Magnificent Ambersons in all but ruins (or at least not to Welles' standards), we see that through a series of bad timing and bad decisions (from both executives and Welles himself), we watch the promise that was Orson Welles slowly fade.

The wax begins to melt and Icarus' wings slowly disintegrate. 

Welles could make a film that fit the standards of the time.  Take The Stranger, for example.  Here, he was under strict orders to make a film on time, on budget, and to not deviate from the script.  The result: a box office hit with critical acclaim.  However, Welles soon started chasing his own ideas, pushing the medium that he described as "a very expensive paint box".  His films became visually revolutionary and stunning but perplexing if one went by the actual plot.

Two good examples of this are The Lady From Shanghai and Touch of Evil.  Both those films have some extraordinary visuals: in the former, the funhouse closing scene where a chaotic shootout ensues, and in the latter, an amazing opening sequence done in one continuous take.  However, few people can say they actually understand what is going on.  One gets the sense that Welles was more interested in what he could do with the camera than what the story was actually about.  I figure if he were here, he'd give me a good argument that he did care about the story, but both films are at times confusing. 

By failing with The Lady From Shanghai, Welles now effectively went into exile.  It was one thing to be a genius, but it was another to be a genius that kept failing financially.  He did manage to film MacBeth for Republic Studios (best known for making B-Westerns), but perhaps in hindsight having the characters speak with Scottish accents doomed the project.  Even now, most Americans don't like hearing such broad accents in their films, but in post-WWII America it would have been almost laughable.  In Europe, he made Othello (although because no one wanted to finance his films, he took two years to actually film it because he had to work as an actor to get the finances to put it all together).  It was beloved in Europe, but not in his homeland.

However, there appeared to be hope for Welles.  He was given one last chance at redemption, or rather a final opportunity to show he could make a good American film that could make money.  That would be Touch of Evil.  In retrospect, having Charlton Heston as a Mexican is perhaps one of the worst casting choices in all film history (side note: as a Mexican-American, I have always thought that Heston's make-up was far too exaggerated to be anywhere close to realistic to where it borders on blackface), but to his credit Heston talked Universal Studios into letting Welles direct. 

Touch of Evil is a brilliant film, especially a tour de force opening that as envisioned by Welles is audacious and sheer genius, but the released version was a disaster financially and yes, a perplexing plot.  Heston himself went on to call it 'the greatest B-picture ever made'.  The failure of Touch of Evil is not Welles' fault: again, the studio took it out of his hands and decided to 'improve' it.  However, by then, it was simply too late.  Orson Welles as a director in American was finished. 

Icarus descends into the waters.

How it all came to end for Welles from the brilliance of Citizen Kane to ending up selling Paul Masson wine (my friend Fidel Gomez, Jr. did a dead-on impression of the line, "We will sell no wine...before its time") is tragic.  Part of it was that Welles was truly ten-to-twenty years ahead of his time.  He clearly loved film and knew the potential to make true art out of cinema.  As a result of taking chances, the money men feared they would not get a return on their investment and always meddled to get it more in tune with their ideas of popular tastes. 

However, part of Orson Welles' fall was the fault of Orson Welles.  His stubbornness, his ego, his inability to see himself as wrong alienated people who could have helped him.  He was a genius, but a genius who at times did not play well with others.  I look on the example of Don Quixote.  I never understood why Welles didn't simply write an actual script.  By filming things without setting them down, it only led to confusion and disorganization.  In short, Don Quixote doesn't make any sense, and while there are beautiful moments the final product is not a good film. 

It also didn't help that he became an object of ridicule.  His weight became a punch line, and to a whole generation of viewers, he was just a fat man who performed magic tricks on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. 

Orson Welles' brilliance as a director is up there, on the screen.  Citizen Kane alone is enough to enshrine him in the pantheon of the greats.  Mercifully for us, he managed to create more extraordinary films: The Lady From Shanghai, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil, F For Fake, Chimes at Midnight.  I confess to also enjoying The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (yes, he didn't direct this film, but since it was the first film with Orson Welles that I saw, not counting his cameo in The Muppet Movie, it holds a special place in my heart).

He has the added benefit of being a first-rate actor: going from Citizen Kane through small parts in such films as A Man For All Seasons and especially The Third Man.  His voice is one of the greatest (even if you do end up thinking of The Brain from Pinky & The Brain). 

In the final analysis, Orson Welles is one of the great directors not because he made the greatest film ever made, but because he made so many good films despite so many great obstacles.  He might still surprise us even after his death: The Other Side of the Wind may yet be completed and released, so we might see one more Film by Orson Welles.

He created some extraordinary images on film, and paid a heavy price for it.  He commented that he had wasted too much time on things unrelated to actually making a film.  "It's been 2% movie-making and 98% hustling", he said about the difficulties of financing his projects (some alas, never to be completed).  Still, what we do have of his work is a great legacy, one which all future filmmakers would be wise to study, appreciate, and draw from.

Orson, where did it all go wrong?

*Herrmann did win an Oscar for his score for The Devil & Daniel Webster which was nominated the same year.  It is impossible to say whether this was an award for both The Devil & Daniel Webster and Citizen Kane, but one can wonder...

To learn more and to see the full Great Directors Retrospectives, click on the link. 

Beneath Planet of the Apes: A Review

BENEATH PLANET OF THE APES

The Planet of the Apes Retrospective

Merely Aping a Better Film...

I should start out by saying that I am aware that the actual title is Beneath THE Planet of the Apes.  However, given that the original film was called Planet of the Apes, not THE Planet of the Apes, I feel I can get away with calling it Beneath Planet of the Apes.  Moreover, it's just a personal preference: I like saying Beneath Planet of the Apes, Escape from Planet of the Apes, etc.  I even prefer Rise of Planet of the Apes, but now I digress. 

Planet of the Apes (the original) turned out to be not only a critical hit but an immensely financially successful one.  However, the film ended with one of the greatest endings in film history, so how could a sequel ever be mounted that could top it, or even come close to matching it?  Beneath Planet of the Apes doesn't do either, but it manages to create a somewhat logical story to tie it with the original.

We begin where we left off in Planet of the Apes.  Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Nova (Linda Harrison) ride out further into the Forbidden Zone.  A short while later, we see a new astronaut has crashed in the desert.  We learn that this astronaut, Brent (James Franciscus), was part of a rescue operation for the first astronauts, but now he's the only survivor.  Brent comes across Nova, who now is alone.  Through her memories, we learn what happened to Taylor: they encountered strange visions of fire and earthquakes until Taylor simply vanishes.  Having been told by Taylor that if anything should happen to him she should go to sympathetic chimpanzee Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter), Nova takes Brent back to the Ape City.

Here, the gorilla General Ursus (James Gregory) bullies the apes to go into the Forbidden Zone on a military expedition/extermination campaign.  The brutal gorillas, who appear to be the majority of the Simian world, eagerly push on for war, while the chimpanzees and orangutans go along with this, despite the misgivings of orangutan elder Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans).  Only one chimpanzee makes her objections clear: Zira.  It is only under intense pressure from her now-husband Cornelius (David Watson, filling in for Roddy McDowall) that she gives her consent (although she makes it clear it is under pressure).  Zira and Cornelius find Nova and Brent, and urge them to find Taylor.  However, they are captured by the gorillas but manage to escape into the Forbidden Zone.

Deep beneath the planet of the apes, Brent discovers the ruins of a lost world and inside this lost city lives a group of humans who are able to project false imagery and both control and read the minds of others.  Brent discovers to his horror that these humans are mutants, disfigured beings underneath their masks, and more horrifying, that they worship a nuclear weapon within their cathedral.  The apes, under the belligerent Ursus and with Dr. Zaius accompanying him, go into the Forbidden Zone, where they encounter the mutants.  Soon a battle between the mutant's mind control and the apes' weapons begins.

Brent and Taylor finally meet, but under the mind control of the mutants, begin to fight to the death until Nova,  in her horror, finally speaks.  The surprise of a human voice distracts the mutant enough to let Taylor and Brent kill him, but now with the apes invading their world, the mutants decide that the Alpha & Omega bomb is to be used.  Taylor and Brent go the cathedral in an effort to stop the bomb, but in the fighting, both are fatally wounded, but not before Taylor and Zaius have one last confrontation.

Beneath Planet of the Apes was clearly an effort to cash in on the phenomenal success of the original, and here is where the film fails.  The shock of the first one is gone, especially from Franciscus' performance.  When he comes upon Ape City, he doesn't look as shocked as one would think someone coming upon a world where apes speak would look like.  It almost looks like he's seen the first movie, so he knows what he's in for.

Whatever flaws people find in Heston's performance from the original, he maintained a righteous fury that propelled Taylor.  Brent looks mostly curious, perhaps slightly puzzled, as to how the planet of the apes came to be, but he never communicates the total shock and/or horror of his discovery.

It isn't just Franciscus' one-note performance.  The script by Paul Dehn (from a story by Dehn and Mort Abrahams) almost plays as a parody of Planet of the Apes.  When Brent is studying the remains of the lost world, he says, "My God, did we do it?  Did we finally, really do it?"  This is almost word for word Taylor's final comments at the end of Planet of the Apes, and it is stretching it a bit to think Taylor and Brent would use almost the same words.  To my mind, it's almost lazy script-writing.

The actual plot of Beneath Planet of the Apes has great promise but never goes far enough.  For example, having a secret human world underneath the ape world has possibilities, but what we end up with are curious, almost comic, scenes of people merely moving their heads with accompanying chirps to signal they are "speaking" with Brent.  It is a lot to ask of Franciscus as Brent to basically carry a one-sided conversation and it's a puzzle as to why producers Abrahams and Arthur P. Jacobs decided to have long scenes where Brent has to answer unasked questions vocally. I figure it would have been too ridiculous to have him answer in kind, which would have turned Beneath Planet of the Apes into a silent movie. 

One idea the film has, about reckless and dangerous military exercises, could also have worked in trying to make the film as topical as its predecessor.  However, while Planet of the Apes was more subtle in its approach, Beneath Planet of the Apes was almost blatant: you can't have young chimpanzee war protesters with pickets about 'no war' without making it obvious it's suppose to be anti-Vietnam War protesters.  Another odd choice was when Ursus in his war speech declared that he didn't hate the human 'because his skin is white'.  Can we say blatant? 

Finally, if director Ted Post is going to spend time showing us the gorilla training, then make the escape from the gorillas be more exciting instead of simply having Zira help them out.  Curiously, Zira and Cornelius played a small role in Beneath Planet of the Apes, and while Watson did the best he could to fill in for McDowall, it wasn't hard to see it wasn't the same Cornelius.  However, Hunter was the best as the principled Zira, the only chimp who saw through Ursus' bullying to get them into a needless war.  Perhaps if more time had been spent on the politics of war, Beneath Planet of the Apes would have had the topical nature it was so desperately seeking. 

Curiously (or sadly) the make-up work was both good (when the mutants reveal themselves it was quite effective) and bad (in the ape gathering it was clear some were wearing ill-fitting masks).  Zaius' final words to Taylor are also quite effective and sadly ring true: "Man is evil, capable of nothing but destruction".  It would have worked better in this final confrontation to have had a better battle between man and ape (and to give Heston more to do, although he agreed to be in the sequel only if it were the end for his character and to have as small an appearance as possible).

This isn't to say Beneath Planet of the Apes isn't entertaining, but it really is a pale shadow of the original.  Granted, it appears there was never any real thought to a sequel until after Planet of the Apes became the success it ended up being.  Therefore, the makers spun the best story they could, but it just wasn't all that good.  In the world of the Planet of the Apes franchise, it certainly lived up to the title--it really was beneath Planet of the Apes. 

DECISION: C-

PLANET OF THE APES FILMS

Planet of the Apes (1968)

Escape from Planet of the Apes 

Conquest of Planet of the Apes

Battle for Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Rise of Planet of the Apes

Dawn of Planet of the Apes

War for Planet of the Apes

Kingdom of Planet of the Apes

The Tree of Life: A Review

THE TREE OF LIFE

It would be remarkably easy to do a Terrence Malick retrospective since in his entire career, he's only made five films as of this writing (Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World and now The Tree of Life).  Two of those films (The Thin Red Line and Days of Heaven) have received Criterion Collection releases so far. The only Malick film I've seen prior to The Tree of Life is The New World.  I thought it was good, though a bit slow, but it has been quite a while since I've seen it. 

Now with The Tree of Life, Malick has chosen not to make a film, but a visual poem.  However, I'm not saying that as a compliment or an insult.  It's just that The Tree of Life, while certainly with some simply beautiful cinematography, in terms of a narrative, a great deal of it doesn't make sense, except perhaps to Terrence Malick. 

The Tree of Life I found is a film that will try many an audience's patience.  At the screening I attended, I counted eighteen people walk out.  By any standard, having such a large number walk out on a film, especially one as highly-praised as The Tree of Life, is especially troubling.  Most of the people who walked out did so at a certain point in the film, and I'm going to take a guess here, but I think they walked out not because they were offended by what was on the screen (although maybe some of them felt their intelligence was being offended), but instead because they frankly were bored.  However, more on that later.

Let's see if we can give an overall plot to The Tree of Life, which I argue doesn't strictly have an actual plot but is more a cinematic meditation about "deep things". Basically, it is about a family: a loving but strict father (Brad Pitt), the perpetually quiet mother (Jessica Chastain), and their three sons.  In The Tree of Life, we are shown that one of them has died young, and this leads to a crisis of faith for the oldest son.  Somehow, this son, Jack grows up to be Sean Penn.   In the midst of all this we have a very long (and yes, strange) interlude about evolution as creation, where the life of the O'Brien family is intertwined with the beginning of the Earth, right down to dinosaurs wandering in what appears to be the same meadows that the O'Brien children will traverse all these millenia later. 

That's as good a wrap-up of The Tree of Life as I can give, because I cannot emphasize enough how this is not an ordinary film.  This isn't a film that has a straight beginning, middle, and end, with scenes that appear to relate one with another.  Rather, it brings back to mind what I understand Proust's Remembrance of Things Past to be in that one thing can lead to another with only memory connecting them.  What The Tree of Life is in fact is a meditation on how the cosmos (and/or God) is uninterested in the lives of mortal men, how it moves on without taking note of the misery and pain even the most loving person can inflict. 

If only it were done better.

Here is my beef with The Tree of Life: no matter how often I rail against this technique, filmmakers (including Malick) confuse pomposity for profundity, conceit for insight.  I especially hated how so much damn voiceover was delivered in whisper.  Oh, why do people think that when you whisper dialogue, you are expressing wisdom to rival The Sermon on the Mount?  Endless amounts of whispering (almost all of it from Chastain) to where one almost took the whole thing as parody.  So much whispering is bad enough, but when it is done as voiceover (and longtime readers know how I feel about voiceover in general), it becomes virtually insufferable. 

Adding misery to The Tree of Life is Malick's near-pathological obsession with moving the camera left right center up down in out all around.  Throughout the film, there were few moments when we got a still, steady shot.  It was almost as if Malick figured he spent all that money on his Steadicam, might as well get his money's worth.  If The Tree of Life had been filmed in 3-D, people would have had to have walked out because they would have been so nauseated by the constantly swinging of the camera the entire theater would have erupted in vomiting. 

Of course, the instability of the camera work is just a reflection of the instability of the film itself.  No pun intended, but we are never grounded within the story of the O'Brien family except in a few brief moments (curiously, those moments when Malick puts the camera down or at least isn't so crazy with it).  In fact, throughout The Tree of Life I don't think any names were used (save Jack, but how he came to grow to be Sean Penn one never learned; perhaps we didn't need such details).  Even when trying to establish some sort of connection (in one scene, we see the adult Jack appearing to be in the same room with the younger version of his father) the camera moved so that we could never get a clear idea of whether this was a memory or fantasy or what-have-you.

Curiously, a lot of The Tree of Life was spent on a lengthy, lengthy, lengthy recreation of nothing less than the Earth's creation.  This was when the majority of the eighteen people walked out; by this point in the film they'd stayed with it as long as they could but I figure they couldn't tolerate not having approached anything resembling a narrative...with dialogue...that was spoken by people with their lips.

If one had wandered into The Tree of Life at this juncture, you would not have been blamed for thinking you'd come to see a nature documentary called The Tree of Life.  Now, I can say I get it: Malick is tying in that light that opens and closes The Tree of Life to whatever we can imagine to be God and how He stands removed and remote from human life (although I'd argue that theme was tackled far better in underground films like RAN or The Seventh Seal).  Just because I understand what Malick is saying doesn't mean I'll declare it a work of genius.

Instead, one becomes almost bored with how he can't get past trying to tell us how important his themes, his film is.  It ends up not being inspired but insipid. 

I won't throw away the good with the bad.  Emmanuel Lubezki's cinematography is simply beautiful and it would be amazing if he didn't win an Oscar for it*.  The imagery of the creation (from the light in the distant sky right down to the dinosaurs that appear so natural in the film) is so lush and, yes I'll say it again, beautiful, that it almost makes me want to see it again.

Another positive is Brad Pitt: he showed the Father figure as someone who loves his sons deeply but who also will brook no dissension from his strict child rearing.  We get a motivation of sorts for his endless frustration (a talented pianist/organist, he admits to wanting to be a great musician but as he puts it, getting sidetracked).  It's one of Pitt's best performances, and the best of the film.  That can't be said for Penn, who really has nothing to do in The Tree of Life except to walk around in a barren land.

In the end, we see Jack wandering around where all the people from his past come around him.  I wondered, 'Are they in Heaven?  In his mind?  In 8 1/2?'  To my mind, it was impossible to divorce Fellini's cinematic ending to that film from Malick's version of it in The Tree of Life.  It looked like he was trying to do something similar to how the Italian film ended (except for the dancing). 

To my mind, The Tree of Life would be a great watch while on LSD. It might even make sense then.  I imagine that to some, The Tree of Life will be very profound.  I did not find it profound.

I understood its ambitions, but it only ended up frustrating, self-indulgent, and self-absorbed.  Granted, there were good things in it (including the use of Smetana's The Moldau as part of the score, although when you use that music to poor effect it should be a cause of concern to how good a film actually is).  However, other than Lubezki and Pitt's work, I find The Tree of Life to be an exceedingly irritating film (especially for its two hour nineteen minute length).  When the credits finally rolled, I heard a voice from the audience call out, "All right, it's over".  I was surprised to realize that voice...was mine. 

*Update: The Tree of Life lost Best Cinematography to Hugo.

DECISION: F

Planet of the Apes (1968): A Review

PLANET OF THE APES (1968)

The Planet of the Apes Retrospective

Simian Says...

A measure of how good a film is could be by how long it remains within the public consciousness.  One could also see how one film inspires a whole industry of sequels, remakes, prequels, television spinoffs, comics, and merchandising.  Using either of those standards, Planet of the Apes is indeed a great film.   However, Planet of the Apes is a great film in both the story it tells and a brilliant example of how science-fiction can serve as allegory for the times. 

In the distant future, four astronauts have left Earth, travelling at the speed of light.  The leader is Taylor (Charlton Heston), a bitter misanthrope joyful to have left a world in chaos.  Also in the expedition is Dodge (Jeff Burton), a generally quiet astronaut, and Landon (Robert Gunner), who is more optimistic about the world than Taylor is.  A third astronaut, the beautiful female Stewart, (Dianne Stanley) has died before they crash onto a strange world.

The three surviving astronauts explore this strange new world, and just before they run out of supplies they discover a bountiful harvest and lush waterfall.  However, they are not alone: there are also mute humanoids who appear uncivilized.  However, both groups are given a rude awakening: they, along with the humanoids, begin to get hunted down, and Taylor sees who is doing the hunting; to his horror, he sees they are being hunted by APES! Apes on horses, and with guns.  In the chase, the travelers are separated and Taylor is captured, but he's shot in the neck, damaging his ability to speak.

In the Ape City, Taylor attracts the attention of Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter), a chimpanzee and animal specialist who becomes fascinated by the human she calls Bright Eyes.  He appears to be a more advanced human than normal.  Taylor, for his part, is desperate to escape and is becoming attracted to another human he named Nova (Linda Harrison).  The leaders of the Ape world, the aristocratic orangutans, look down on both other apes and on human studies.  The Minister of Science, Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), would sooner see all humans exterminated and only grudgingly permits the work of both Dr. Zira and her fiance, Dr. Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), an archaeologist who believes that a pre-Simian culture existed, and more blasphemous, that apes evolved from humans. 

Taylor soon makes it clear to Zira that he can write, but Dr. Zaius is determined to neutralize this unusual human.  In a desperate bid for freedom, Taylor makes a daring daylight escape, but is capture.  However, by this time his voice has recovered, and he utters one of the most famous lines in film: 

"Take your sticking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!"

stunning all the apes.

In a hearing, it is decided the chimps will be charged with heresy and Taylor turned over to Dr. Zaius.  He fears Taylor, believing him a member of an unknown human group on the planet rather than a space traveler.  Zaius demands to know where 'others of his kind' are, and gives him six hours before Zaius cuts into him.  With the aide of Zira and Cornelius, Taylor and Nova escape back into the Forbidden Zone, but they are pursued by Zaius and the gorilla army.  Despite being shown evidence of the pre-Simian civilization, Zauis will not bend: humans are a menace and must be destroyed.  Taylor takes Zauis hostage, bargaining for his and Nova's freedom.  After they leave, Zauis destroys the evidence of 'evolution', and Taylor makes one of the most shocking and horrifying discoveries in film history as to the truth of The Planet of the Apes.

I have long argued that a good science-fiction film works on two levels: as a straightforward adventure story and as an allegory on social issues.   Planet of the Apes works so well on both levels that it can be appreciated on one without shortchanging the other.  If we take Planet of the Apes on face value, it is a thrilling adventure story of a man caught in a world where mankind is not the dominant species, where his uniqueness puts him in grave danger, and where monkeys can talk. 

On a more intellectual level, Planet of the Apes is at times both commentary and even satire on the late-1960's world.  One aspect of Planet of the Apes which kept escaping me until now was how the film subtly addresses the issue of race.

In this Simian world, the apes at the apex of society are the orangutans: they are the leaders in politics and religion who are clearly to be obeyed.  After them come the chimpanzees, who are intellectuals and scientists but do not have power, not even shared, and they are somewhere beneath the orangutans but above another group.  At the lowest rung of society are the gorillas: the soldiers and the menial workers.

It isn't until recently that I realized that the orangutans were the lightest apes in terms of skin tone while the gorillas were the darkest.  While not openly stating things about the power structure in America, it is more than coincidence that the "whitest" group held power while the "blackest" group served to do the most basic. 

Planet of the Apes also addresses the explosive issue of faith versus science.  Throughout the film, there is a struggle between the more scientific theories of the chimps and the faith-based thinking of the orangutans.  The entire trial of whether Taylor is human as the apes understand human to be puts these two views in conflict, almost like a parody of the Scopes "monkey" trial.  Even here, within the search to whether apes evolved from man, we get great commentary.  When asked to state why The Lawgiver, the Ape version of God, created all apes equal, Taylor wisely retorts, "It seems some apes are more equal than others". 

However, all these deep thoughts are couched within an exciting tale of a cynical man who finds that he does indeed need humanity, or at least one human.  Taylor is almost always on the run, attempting to escape this mad world he finds himself trapped in.  The audience will naturally identify with Taylor, and thus we are also on the run from his pursuers. 

It was an incredibly shrewd move to cast Charlton Heston as Taylor.  While watching Planet of the Apes I thought that with the exception of John Wayne few actors have projected American strength as well and as often as Heston.  This is the man who has played Moses, Judah Ben-Hur, Andrew Jackson, Michelangelo: titans of power who win great battles militarily or artistically.  As Taylor, the audience sees another side of Heston and no, I'm not referring to his backside in his first nude scene.

Unlike any previous role, Heston is powerless, weak, incapable of overcoming with just his strength.  His performance is that of a man totally stripped of power and having no power except to rage at his weakness.  However, some of his best scenes are with Harrison.  He has to carry the dialogue for both of them, and he is able to convey his growing need for the human contact he's so casually rejected before.

We also have some brilliant performances from McDowall and Hunter as Cornelius and Zira.  In another curious commentary on the times, it is the female Zira who is the more dominant of the two and the male Cornelius who is more hesitant to take on authority.  Both of them have the added difficulty in having to act while wearing heavy ape make-up, and the fact that they can still project such things as love, anger, and fear while encased in it is a credit to their skills as actors.

Both of them never appear to make light of the premise but behave in Planet of the Apes as though humans be the inferior species is the natural order of things.  Both characters are given a desire for truth and knowledge that are easily relate able to us.  Evans, best known as a Shakespearean actor, gives Dr. Zaius range: he isn't a straight-up villain who just wants to get rid of Taylor, but an ape who has motivation for fearing the rise of man.  In fact, his character is one who knows the entire truth and in his way is doing all he can to spare all involved from the ramifications of discovering the truth.

Director Franklin Schaffer does a wonderful job not just in directing the actor's performances right down to having all the apes move in a more ape-like manner, but in holding back information, of trusting that the audience will be able to keep up with him.  For example, the film spends I'd say a good fifteen to twenty minutes building up this strange new world the astronauts find themselves in, and it is done so well that we become engrossed in the story along with them.  Therefore, when we discover we are in a planet of apes, it still comes as a thorough shock to discover this world is run by them.  Throughout Planet of the Apes, Schaffer keeps holding back information such as the fates of Dodge and Landon, that when we get the next twist, we keep being surprised.

The biggest surprise comes at the end in one of the greatest endings in film.  We are given faint hints only at the very end, but when we do see the ending, it still stuns us because of all we've seen.  I have long held that the ending of Planet of the Apes is not just a great twist ending, but also one of the most horrifying ones in film history.  Realizing the truth, I think the audience reaction is between Taylor's and Nova's.  The latter, a simple mute human who has fallen in love with Taylor, can only stare in fear and confusion at what has set Taylor off.  Taylor can only rage at the realization of the truth.

What makes this last moment even more powerful is the lack of music.  It allows us to absorb the full shock of all that we've witnessed and what we are witnessing just before the credits roll.   It was a deliberately wise move to not have music emphasize this scene because we don't need anything to underscore it: the visual is enough.  That isn't to say that Jerry Goldsmith's score isn't important.  Far from it: his music for Planet of the Apes is one of the film's greatest assets.

From the beginning of the film, Goldsmith's score sets a strange, otherworldly feel, both familiar and exotic.  It might be my imagination, but the music sounded highly influenced by Igor Stravinsky.  I don't know if his music was influential, but there was a dissonance to the score that added to the bizarre setting.  In some of the most important points such as when Taylor is making a daring escape or when we see the rulers of this planet for the first time, the score enhances the chaos of the story. 

The script, co-written by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, provides moments of excitement (as when Taylor tries to flee) of romance (especially well-written considering that Nova is mute), and even comedy.  One of the lightest moments in Planet of the Apes is at the trial, when the three orangutans refuse to hear, see, or speak to the heresies Taylor's existence confronts them with.  It might be cliché but is still remarkably effective and funny.

I would be remiss if I did not mention of the hallmarks of Planet of the Apes: John Chambers' brilliant make-up work.  The looks of the apes is so convincing and realistic that it makes accepting the premise that much easier.  The orangutans and chimpanzees and gorillas look so amazingly realistic it becomes completely believable that they do talk.  Chambers rightly deserved the Honorary Oscar he was awared for his make-up work. 

I can say that regardless of how many times I see Planet of the Apes, the film continues to surprise me.  It surprises me with its twists and turns even though I already know what is going to happen, because I am always so caught up in the story that I forget I've seen it before.   It surprises me by the wit it has in addressing issues still relevant today: man's inhumanity to man and beast, the fear of 'the other' and how the fear leads to misery, how unfortunately we behave like beasts or hold ourselves better than those who are more like us than are different.

Planet of the Apes is a brilliant science-fiction adventure story.  It's also a brilliant film about at times we are not as humane as humans should be. 

DECISION: A+

Next Planet of the Apes film: Beneath Planet of the Apes

Comparison Between 1968 and 2001 Planet of the Apes

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog. A Review

THE LODGER: A STORY OF THE LONDON FOG

The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog was Alfred Hitchcock's third directing feature, but for all intents and purposes it was his first "Hitchcock" picture.  The themes that would dominate Hitchcock's films are all there: the wrongly-accused man on the run, the blonde that excites men to frenzy, the crimes themselves being secondary to how they affect others; it's as if The Lodger was his calling card to great film-making.    However, apart from the pedigree of the director, The Lodger would stand up as a great film for its atmosphere and how an audience can be manipulated so cleverly.

It is London, and a series of murders are being committed by a mysterious figure known as The Avenger.  This serial killer is after beautiful blonde women and on Tuesday nights, and it's the talk of the city.  In our opening, we get a description of The Avenger: tall, with a scarf covering his face.  Now we move on to the Bunting home.  Mr. and Mrs. Bunting (Arthur Chesney and Marie Ault) have a daughter, Daisy (billed simply as 'June'), who is being courted by a detective named Joe (Malcolm Keen).  She is young, she is beautiful, and she is blonde.  Into their world enters The Lodger (Ivor Novello), coming in from out of the fog, a man who is tall and wearing a scarf that covers his face.  The Buntings have a room to let, and he takes it.

Soon, Mrs. Bunting becomes concerned about the strange man within her presence.  The murders are coming closer to their home, and the mysterious man above them is going out in the late of night on Tuesdays.  Even more alarming, the unnamed lodger has become enamored with Daisy and her blonde hair, much to her distress and that of Joe.  Suspicion grows until we get a shocking twist, but by then it may be too late.

Hitchcock complained about the change he had to make to The Lodger to make it more palatable to audiences, especially fans of Novello.  However, while it would have been better if it hadn't been tweaked to make it more acceptable, the film still works.

If one takes a careful look at The Lodger, we see that the actual murders are unimportant (here again, another Hitchcock theme, that of 'the MacGuffin', the mystery/object everyone wants or talks about but which is not central to the actual story, but more on that later).  Instead, it is the suspicion built around the Lodger; all that we see points to him being The Avenger, but all we really have is just that: suspicion.  Still, with only circumstantial evidence, Hitchcock has already set the situation so brilliantly that we are already under his control about the identity of The Avenger.

Being a silent movie, Hitchcock has to rely on the visuals to set the mood, and he does so brilliantly in The Lodger.  The opening titles, with their off-kilter typesetting and repetitive nature, suggest frenzy, and there are some amazing scenes that are wildly inventive not just for silent films, but really in cinema in general.  Take when we first see the lodger approach the Bunting home.  We first have the camera move towards the door with a shadow preceding it.  Once the matronly Mrs. Bunting opens the door, we see her reaction: one of shock, almost fear, and then see the lodger: a shrouded figure emerging from the fog, like a demon having escaped Hell. 

Another massively inventive scene is when the Buntings are in the kitchen, discussing the man upstairs.  A chandelier that is dominant in the shot starts to move, and the three of them look up.  We then see the ceiling becomes transparent, with the feet of the lodger pacing back and forth.  Oddly, even in today's films, I doubt any modern director would try something so psychologically driven.

One can see the German Expressionistic influences Hitchcock was using so effectively in The Lodger.

By setting up the scenario of how the Avenger targets beautiful blonde girls early in The Lodger, Hitchcock's directing and Eliot Stannard's screenplay (billed as scenario along with uncredited work by Hitchcock and his wife, Alma Reville from the novel by Marie Belloc Lowndes) shift us not to the actual murders of the Avenger, but on our fears that the lodger is the dangerous murderer. 

In the first few minutes, we learn the Avenger targets beautiful blonde women.  Later on, when the lodger sees his rooms, he is greeted by what seems to be a nearly endless parade of paintings of beautiful blonde women.  Hence, our suspicion.  When Mrs. Bunting returns to see if he will take them, she is surprised to see him turn the paintings around.  More suspicion.  Hitchcock allows the suspense to build with each new sequence, playing with the audience's expectations until we become convinced of the danger.

Visually, as I've stated before, there are some beautiful sequences.  It is clear that Hitchcock learned a great deal from the German Expressionists since the aforementioned shots, along with a remarkably shot one of a seemingly solitary hand descending a flight of stairs, have a strong feel for Weimar cinema.  The Lodger is a film that could be mistaken for one by Fritz Lang or F. W. Murnau.  The final concluding chase as the lodger is pursued by an avenging mob has a definite Expressionist look: when the lodger is brought down from the fence he's been caught in, it mirrors the imagery of Christ being brought down from the Crucifix, and when we see the lodger's face as he looks out the window, the impression of a cross is marked on his face. 

Here, we have the beginnings of some of Alfred Hitchcock's great themes and motifs that run throughout his career.  The idea of the wrong man being accused goes from such early films like The 39 Steps through Suspicion, The Wrong Man and North By Northwest.  The theme of love or at least attraction/desire and murder or the threat of murder: Vertigo, Rebecca, Psycho, Spellbound.  The effects of guilt on the criminal or those related to the victim: Vertigo, I Confess, Psycho.  The cool blonde who drives men to frenzy: where to begin? 

Oddly, there is another Hitchcockian aspect in The Lodger that I don't think has been discussed before: the theme of stairs or levels, especially descending down some. The Lodger is probably not the first to use stairs to mark a sense of impending doom or danger, but we see this again and again: from Rebecca to Suspicion to The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) to Vertigo to Psycho to The Birds.  People going down the stairs, most of the time, were a source of tension and suspense for The Master of Suspense, and in The Lodger, it is the first instance of his using this device.

There's even a bit of comedy, although I doubt it would pass muster today.  One of the title cards is suppose to be dialogue from Mrs. Bunting.  It reads, "Even if he is a bit queer, he's a gentleman".  There's a lot of subtext to that line, given Joe the cop says he doesn't think girls aren't the lodger's type.  Read whatever you like in that.

Truth be told, by today's standards Novello's performance is highly mannered, almost exaggerated.  However, the performance is perfectly acceptable when it comes to measuring silent film acting.  He does have an intensity to his role whenever he appears enraptured by the beautiful Daisy.  I think the best performance was Ault's Landlady.  She almost always had a sense of fear and worry.  June, as Daisy, was pretty and she managed to bring charm to her character who has fallen in love with the unnamed lodger. 

The Lodger is a brilliant film in general.  It is a brilliant silent film.  It is a brilliant Hitchcock film: a finely-crafted suspense picture that leads you in the wrong direction but which puts you at an advantage over the characters.  As I stated earlier, the identity of the actual Avenger is unimportant (that would be the MacGuffin), since the case is solved off-screen.

Rather, the film is not about murder, but suspicion.  The Lodger is a brilliant way to start one of the greatest cinematic careers in history.

DECISION: A+

Larry Crowne: A Review (Review #235)

LARRY CROWNE

In these times of economic turmoil, fear, and insecurity, when many Americans sense the world they live in and will leave behind will be worse than they one they were born in, we have Larry Crowne, a film that I figure attempts to remind us that with a song in our hearts and a sense of joy, we will overcome.  It might have worked, but there is such a massive attempt to be whimsical and endearing that by the film's end, you don't care how this extremely predictable film concludes.

Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks), is a joyful fellow, always happy and optimistic.  He goes through his day at the U-Mart with a happy heart: cleaning up the parking lot, gathering the carts, putting everything in order.  In short, he's a happy man within his little world, and has been rewarded eight times as Employee of the Month.  He is called into the break room, believing it will be Number Nine.  Alas, it is not to be: because he does not have a college education and despite his 20 years in the Navy, he cannot advance any higher, and thus, he is fired. 

Devastated, he wanders a bit until his neighbors Lamar and B'Ella (Cedric the Entertainer & Taraji P. Henson) advise him to go to community college.  With that solid piece of advise, the ever-chipper, ever-optimistic Larry signs up for three courses.  One is an Economics course taught by Dr. Matsutani (George Takei), the other, a Speech course by Mrs. Tainot (Julia Roberts).  While Dr. Matsutani revels in the power he has and I would argue, is slightly divorced from reality, Mrs. Tainot is totally burned out.  It's clear she doesn't want to be there, but be there she must, especially after Larry Crowne shows up just in time to stop the class from being cancelled due to a lack of minimum number of students.

Well, now with Larry in class, we meet a group of I figure whimsical characters.  We do get a few tidbits about them: Steve Dibiasi (Rami Malek) is a sweet but extremely dumb kid, Lala (Maria Canals-Barrera) the shy woman, and Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) the free spirit who, surprisingly, is even more upbeat and cheerful than Larry. 

Now, Larry learns about life thanks especially to Talia and her scooter-driving 'gang', whose leader Don (Wilmer Valderrama) is slightly jealous of Larry; how a man supposedly in his twenties can truly be insecure around a man in his forties or fifties the script never says, but I digress.  Mrs. Tainot, or Mercedes if you will, is married to Dean (Bryan Cranston), whose main activities are never finishing his novels and watching porn on her dime.  It's obvious they are miserable together, but for reasons comprehended only by them they stay together. 

As Larry gets his groove back, with a little feng-shui thanks to Talia, a brief romance between Larry and Mercedes emerges, but one she quickly puts down.  However, by film's end Larry now has let go of all the remnants of his old life, works on-call at the cookhouse owned by his friend Frank (Ian Gomez), and at last, the ever-optimistic Larry and the formerly morose Mercedes can be, well, take a guess.

It is one thing for Tom Hanks to be in a movie.  It is another for him to be in a movie and direct it.  Finally, it is one thing for him to be in a movie, direct same movie, and co-write the screenplay.  Even that one can roll with, if it were not for his co-writer: one Nia Vardalos. 

I am tempted to write Personal Reflections on the career of our favorite GREEK*-Canadian girl, a woman who has managed to parlay her family into a career in ruins.  As a screenwriter, she earned an Oscar nomination for My Big Fat GREEK Wedding.  After that, she wrote the critical & commercial flop Connie & Carla (44% positive at Rotten Tomatoes).  After that, she wrote the critical & commercial flop My Life in Ruins (15% positive). After that, she wrote the critical & commercial flop I Hate Valentine's Day (9% positive). 

With not one, not two, but three flops to her credit, what would possess two-time Oscar winner Hanks to believe she could spin a story into gold besides a personal friendship with him and his wife, the part-Greek Rita Wilson?  The more I ponder it, the greater the possibility of Personal Reflections on Vardalos, but now I digress.

Suffice it to say Larry Crowne under the screenplay by Hanks and Vardalos suffers from far too much sugar and not enough protein.  Our lead character is suppose to be so endearing, so sweet, so lovable, so Tom Hanksian, that we're suppose to automatically root for him simply because he's just so gosh-darn pleasant.  However, even in the opening montage, as Larry merrily rolls along at the U-Mart, I kept thinking 'wow, he's always happy, almost imbecilicly so'.  He's suppose to be this giant ball of sunshine when he really just comes across as annoyingly chipper, the kind of person whom one ends up disliking because of his upbeat disposition. 

Another simply dreadful scene is when Larry is 'inducted' into the "scooter bike gang".  Here's Don, all decked out in leather, looking all tough, staring down our sweet man-child.  He then starts snapping his fingers, and shortly after, every member of 'the gang' follows suit.  When Larry, a bit hesitant, starts to snap his fingers with everyone snapping in rhythm, he now is officially in. 

As I watched this, I honestly thought Don and his crew were about to start, "When you're a Jet/you're a Jet all the way/from your first cigarette/to your last dying day..."  Scenes like this are just downright stupid, not sweet, and to my mind, it amazes me that neither Hanks or Vardalos didn't say to each other, 'maybe this is a little too much, even for Larry Crowne'.   If this be sweetness, let it be sour.

If you want to address a surprisingly serious premise like in Larry Crowne (a middle-aged man losing his job and in a sense, his identity) you need two things to be truly successful: a sympathetic lead and a realistic scene.  Here, you have neither.  When Larry is let go, we've seen him enough at work in the opening credit montage to actually dislike him and feel nothing when our Eight-Time Employee of the Month is terminated; anyone who is so joyful, almost cocky, about his job prowess that when he's addressed by his last name he smiles while drinking his coffee and points to the crown on the mug is almost asking to be punched. 

Those who did the firing appear on screen to be almost giddy with glee to see Larry go.  They certainly aren't taking any of it seriously: one of them, Jack Strang (Ron Riggle), offers him the last slice of pizza right after Larry's been fired, and another makes jokes about how thanks to his degree he and not our beloved hero, managed to move up.  I figure when anyone is let go, it is not a happy moment, but one handled with restraint and with a certain decorum.  By trying so hard to be funny, Larry Crowne ends up being painfully unfunny, almost cruel. 

Another big problem is in the film's desire to be so damn cute and whimsical.  All the characters save Mercedes are quirky (even though we hardly see anything of the other students save Talia), and those we do see border on insipid.  I especially had an issue with free spirit Talia.  As portrayed by Mbatha-Raw, Talia is annoying, not endearing, in her eager willingness to make-over Larry, right down to renaming him "Lance Corona" (FYI: Corona is Spanish for 'crown', oh how I love the wit) because in her words 'it suits him better'.  She's always chipper, always eager, to where she doesn't become believable. 

I also need to mention Cranston as Julia Roberts' loutish husband.  His performance,aside from being bad and unbelievable, appeared to be a cross between Malcolm in the Middle's Hal and Breaking Bad's Walter.  Like the former, he appears to be an idiot, clueless about how his behavior may be bad.  Like the latter, he appears to be a dangerous man capable of violence. 

I digress slightly to point out one last thing with the screenplay: it really is two stories in one film.  The first part is about a man in his forties/fifties who suddenly finds himself unemployed.  That thread is almost forgotten in the second part: the romance between student and teacher.  Once Larry gets a job as a cook using his twenty years as a Navy cook as experience, we do see him study, but we never see him seek employment of another type.  I thought that was the reason he went to college in the first place. 

It seems like Hanks & Vardalos slammed two stories together and opted to use one to segway into another.  Worse, if this film is about the positives of higher education, it is disingenuous to have Ever-Chipper Talia drop out to start her own business.  Either getting a degree, even an Associates, is good or bad: it cannot have it both ways.   The one thing that was realistic is that probably most college students have no idea who Benjamin Disraeli is. When asked, Steve said Disraeli was someone from Israel; how clever. 

Side note: maybe I'm bragging, but I not only know who the Earl of Beaconsfield is, but that George Arliss won an Oscar for his portrayal of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli in Disraeli and that he was the first and so far only Jewish-born leader in Britain. 

We should move on to our leads.  It's something to be said about Larry's termination when it is badly acted. I didn't believe for a moment that Larry was truly devastated, and  it was oddly reminiscent of another scene where a character played by Tom Hanks was fired: that being Philadelphia.  I blame it on the directing, but since Hanks directed himself, it doesn't make it any easier to say. 

Roberts is still a Pretty Woman, but her lush who finds renewed joy in life and teaching thanks to the sunny optimism of Larry Crowne never works.  If she were smart, she would have left Dean long ago since it's clear they don't like each other and have nothing holding them together. 

Larry Crowne appears to be channeling Forrest Gump in trying to have the audience love this extremely sweet, affable character who only appears to want to please and spread a lot of joy to those around him and make them better people.  However, the film fails because it doesn't know the difference between endearing and irritating, because it has thin characters who serve little to no purpose, a plot (or plots) that is (or are) remarkably boring, and the idea that Tom Hanks shaking his ass at me is the highest point of comedy. 

Really Tom, you had someone dress up like a Star Trek character and you couldn't work Sulu into the scene? 

DECISION: F

* Few people have made not just an entire career, but an entire industry, out of milking their heritage as much as Nia Vardalos.  It's one thing to be proud of your ancestry, it's another to use it to shamelessly promote yourself and create a good number of reviled projects (example, My Life in Ruins).  It's almost as if she never loses an opportunity to remind us she's of Greek ancestry.  Therefore, if she's going to be excessive in her proclamation of being Greek, I fail to see why I shouldn't be excessive in proclaiming her Greek heritage either.  Let us remind you, Jennifer Aniston is part-Greek, yet she never goes on about it the way Vardalos does.

The Battle of Algiers: A Review (Review #234)

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS

Casbah Conflict...

I always bristle when people tell me that 'it's just a movie'.  It isn't that I should take everything in a movie seriously.  However, I reject the idea that a movie can't have an impact on people because I've seen for myself just how a film, if done correctly, can shift attitudes to manipulate an audience.

The idea that a mere movie cannot have a powerful impact on an audience is a false one, and the definitive case against that is The Battle of Algiers.  Is it art?  Is it propaganda?  Is it just a movie?  I think in fact, The Battle of Algiers is a brilliant example of how a movie can be so strong visually that one becomes part of the story, though not sometimes for the good.

The Battle of Algiers tells the story of the final few years of the French occupation of Algeria.  Long a part of their empire, after World War II the native Algerians start demanding independence, but after being thrown out of French Indochina (now Vietnam), the French aren't willing to give up another bit of the realm, at least, not without a fight.  Unfortunately, they get one, and a particularly brutal one where both the French and the Algerians commit horrifying acts of murder that only cause the sides to dig in deeper and bring misery to non-combatants.

We begin with an old Algerian, who has obviously been tortured, revealing the hideout of four agents of the FLN (National Liberation Front).  The French army surrounds them, and of those trapped, including a woman and a child, only one stares out in stern defiance.  That would be Ali La Ponte (Brahim Haggiag), a native Algerian.  We go back three years earlier, to 1954.  Ali is a petty street criminal who is imprisoned, more than likely because among other things, he dared strike back at a European.  While in prison, he witnesses an execution of an FLN member and becomes radicalized to join the cause.  Once out, he quickly rises through the ranks to become a leader, albeit a hotheaded one. 

The FNL continues their harassment of the French living within Algiers, while the French strike back by requiring indignities of the Arabs in their own country, ranging from checkpoints around the Casbah and requiring the Algerians to carry identification papers at all times to searching them at will.  The fight between the FNL and the French grows, with more and more barbaric acts: two brutal bombings that are shocking in and of themselves but also by how freely both sides appear to kill those not actually doing the fighting.  The city of Algiers is a city besieged, where fear and paranoia grip both populations.  Finally, the French paratroopers are brought in, led by Colonel Mathieu (Jean Martin).

The Colonel is efficient in his efforts to quash the insurrection/rebellion due to his response to a planned general strike by the Algerians.  His plan to root out the leadership, Operation Champagne, bears results, but again at a particularly brutal cost.  Eventually, Colonel Mathieu has cornered Ali and his compatriots, and after given warning to come out, the four of them choose death before surrender.

In a coda, we see the uprising has not quieted down.  Instead, a fiercer one has emerged.  On December 21, 1960, the last day of demonstrations that take place after the main events of The Battle of Algiers,  a voice calls out to the unseen demonstrators, asking what they want.  The response comes out clear: "Freedom!  Independence!"

The film ends with women waving the Algerian flags in a frenzy of fury, a dance of defiance to where they will not stop until they get what they want.  A voice-over tells us that on July 2, 1962, Algeria at last gains independence.

The Battle of Algiers' brilliance comes from many fronts (no pun intended).  Chief among them is Marcello Gatti's cinematography.  Although everything in The Battle of Algiers was filmed specifically for the film, the look of the film is one that could easily pass for a documentary.  This director Gillo Pontocorvo accomplished first by filming in black-and-white and second by the brilliant camera work.  Pontocorvo does not have exaggerated angles or shots that draw attention to themselves.  Instead, he shows things as they would have happened.

Take for example when the paratroopers come marching into Algiers.  The angles are from the street, sometimes from the feet of the marching soldiers, which gives us a feeling that the footage was gathered from a newsreel as opposed from a professional film crew.  Other examples are from when either bombing take place (from the French coming into the Casbah, or the FLN going to the European quarter).

Another brilliant element within The Battle of Algiers is Ennio Morricone's score.  Every time his music appears, it enhances the scene and makes it far more powerful.  We start from the first note, where the music signals chaos and fierce fighting, right down to the music when the bodies have to be pulled from the wreckage.  In these moments, the score is exceptionally sad, mournful, and in a stroke of brilliance, it is the same music repeated over both when the Algerians and the French are killed.

Here, Pontecorvo subliminally signals to us that death is death regardless of who it has struck.

Side note: I found it ironic that the song the French teens about to be bombed were listening to was a Spanish song with the refrain "Hasta mañana, Rebecca", (Until tomorrow, Rebecca), when we the audience know that for some of them, there will be no tomorrow.  The scene when the Algerian women are about to set off to do their act of terror is set to the tense beating of native drums, which only enhances the tension of the sequence.  

We must also point out to the performances.  All the actors in The Battle of Algiers are non-professionals and with FNL leader Saadi Yacef playing a fictionalized version of himself called Jaffar, with the exception of Martin as Col. Mathieu.  It would have been easy to paint the Algerians as heroic and the French as villainous, but Pontecorvo does not make things easy for the viewer.

Mathieu is not portrayed as a monster but as an efficient military man given a task and doing it to the best of his ability.   At a press conference he tells the reports the truth: that the conflict they are in boils down to one thing: "the FNL wants to throw us out of Algeria and we want to stay".   What he thinks of it is immaterial.

In the same vein, Yacef/Jaffar is not portrayed as a barbarian bent on killing every Frenchman that he can lay his hands on.  On the contrary, he realizes the truth about terror as a weapon: "Acts of violence don't win wars.  Neither wars nor revolutions.  Terrorism is useful as a start, but then, the people themselves must act". 

Even for a film about revolution such as The Battle of Algiers, where the temptation to make the FNL and their supporters heroic is strong, Pontecorvo allows moments of barbarity to seep in.  For example, we hear a voice-over making the newest pronouncements from the FNL about living a more Islamic life.  Among the proclamations is a death sentence for those who are drunk.  While the voice-over continues, we see a group of children harassing an old drunk, making look like a miniature mob.  It is a remarkably terrifying and sad scene. 

The emotional impact of The Battle of Algiers is still so powerful, so real, that watching it may make one almost sympathetic to violent overthrows of governments. It is no accident that it looks like a documentary. It is no accident that it takes a strong point of view.  I confess that after watching it for the first time, I got so caught up in its emotion that if I had been asked to right then and there, I would have been tempted to join the resistance against French occupation, and I'm one of the most socially conservative, bourgeois individuals I know. 

The Battle of Algiers is still relevant today: in the anger of occupation, the stubbornness of combatants, and now with the rise of the Arab Spring a willingness of the man and woman on the street to continue fighting and dying for freedom.

Is it propaganda? Yes.  Is it art? Yes.  Is it just a movie? Yes and no.

The Battle of Algiers is a thrilling and powerful film, with an emotional impact that will stay with you long after you finish it.  For a film to do that, even after nearly fifty years, is a sign that the battle goes on.

DECISION: A+