The Film Reporter

Orson Wells, looked upon as one of the most recognised directors of film history celebrates his birthday posthumously today.

What’s your favourite Wells film?

Sidney Lumet’ Serpico (1973) is regarded as one of the best ‘cop’ films ever made, and there have been a hell of a lot of terrible ones thats for sure. But really, Serpico is not only a film to be admired for it’s terrific performance from Al Pacino, but also the fact that his depiction is one of a true story. 

I’ve always been fascinated by films that involve crime, whether it’s people fighting it or working in it. Serpico is a great film that follows a mans journey through his joining of the NYPD as a young naive recruit to a shady veteran who is paranoid towards people he should be calling his co-workers. 

It’s a film that helped define genre’s but far more than that, it’s a great story that ok, at times spends too much time on delivering it’s material, but has a great performance by Pacino and a great direction from Sidney Lumet.  

“Success is a great deodorant. It takes away all your past smells.” – Elizabeth Taylor, born 81 years ago today

Various stars cementing their fame in the courtyard of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre

(via cinemastatic)

“I’m going to say a word, and I want you to say the first word that comes into your head.”

(via martyscorseseseyebrows)

American Beauty (1999) is held as one of the best modern pieces of American Cinema and deservedly so. The main themes that is tackled seems to be the artificiality of the American Dream and materialism. Lester (Kevin Spacey) is a husband in a mid-life crisis who seeks out to do exactly what he wants, and tries to focus on what’s important in life, (note the sofa scene). 

The family made up of Lester, Carolyn (Annette Bening) and the daughter Jane (Thora Birch) are dysfunctional to the highest degree, the father hasn’t spoken to his daughter in months and the mother is obsessed with success and appearance and seems to have also lost sight of what’s most important, her daughter’s upbringing. 

The film attempts at symbolising their separation from each other by having each character lead a different narrative strand, they each go about their business, Carolyn has an affair whilst her Husband seems to have stood up for himself whilst he works out in an attempt to seduce his daughters friend Angela (Mena Suvari) whilst her daughter strikes a romance with the new neighbour Ricky (Wes Bentley). This works, and every on-screen confrontation between at least two of them seems to end in a huge argument.

The ending for me was absolutely fantastic, one of my favourite, that moment where Lester (Spacey) sits down whilst starring in nostalgia at the old family picture, finally realising that what is most important is his family, the ending is an obvious metaphor, (spoilers) the death of Lester seems to represent the death of the American Dream, it puts to rest the ugliness and fake-ness of this symbol that was once created. 

American Beauty (1999) sits as the 48th best film of all time in IMDB and for me the film represented Sam Mendes’ past in theatre through his great use of lighting and direction, with the help of Conrad L.Hall of course. 

When one looks back on modern classics in film, many of us will stumble across American History X (1998). It’s a film about a Neo-Nazi who has been released from prison after the murder of two black men, who attempts to steer his brother away from the abyss of the mindless ideology that sucked him in.

The film was written by David McKenna and Directed by Tony Kaye. Tony has a trademark that his protagonists often seem to be filled with self-hatred or regret and often uses flashbacks in his stories. Indeed Tony utilises these in American History X. There are two narrative strands in the film, one in the present and one in the past where the audience get’s to see how Derek became to be who he is. Mick LaSalle from the San Francisco Chronicle states-

“One waits in vain for Derek to renounce his past thinking. We had to watch him think his way in. We should see him think his way out.”

For a brief moment I agreed with his comment, then I thought back and realised that I felt the opposite. This film is presenting the manipulation of vulnerable people. We had to see how Derek turned into this monster because that is primarily what the film is about. A young man who is frustrated and angry in life is turned down the wrong path by manipulative lost souls which causes repercussions in his future life. 

Derek’s main goal in the narrative is to show his younger brother, Danny the light, he realises at one point that the only way he can do this is by a summoning of his experiences in prison. The following scene of both Danny and Derek stripping the wall is one of my favourite in the film, it’s the stripping of Danny’s previous self, a clean start, a new start, a confirmation of the evilness and sheer uneducated form of the Nazi ideology, and the completion of Derek’s goal.

One thing I will say about LaSalle’s statement about the flashbacks is yes, I would have liked to have seen other than the scenes between Derek and Lamont (Laundry guy) a transformation from his old self into the new, but nevertheless, American History X is one of the best uses of Flashbacks I’ve seen in contemporary cinema, and one of the most powerful attempts of racism at the time since ‘Do The Right Thing’ (1989).

The Riverside Theatre in Hammersmith, London is showing a double bill tonight of Tokyo Story and Rashomon, two japanese classics I’ve never seen. I can’t wait!