Martin Scorsese

Erroneously hailed as the most important director working today, Martin Scorsese and his Oscar win for The Departed certainly have people excited. That a man with so many Oscar misses and finally a win is not surprisingly newsworthy, but its disappointing that all of the attention has to be for a film that doesn't come close to being his best. One needs look no further than Raging Bull for an example of a master craftsman at the top of his game. The film is at once relevant, contemporary and also timeless. The Departed is a fun, slightly sloppy cat-and-mouse espionage remake, hardly even a peer of Raging Bull or Taxi Driver. But heck, with the abysmal state of movies today the award might as well go to someone who has made a few good ones.

To me Scorsese isn't an important director because of the films he's made, though he's made some fine ones. I love the guy because of how he uses his celebrity. Scorsese makes big, modern, ballsy films that everyone loves and then goes and uses the resources that come with being a big, modern ballsy filmmaker to support the preservation of classic film through The Film Foundation. I get excited everytime he is on TV talking about how important it is to preserve films, or to study foreign ones (see his My Voyage to Italy). The truth of the matter is that film appreciation and preservation does not have a more accessible voice than that of Martin Scorsese. Robert A. Harris may spread the gospel more eloquently, but his audience is limited to those who already love what he is doing. Scorsese has the ability to reach the masses and to get them to pay at least a little attention to how important preserving our filmic past really is.

To me nothing is more worthy of an Oscar.

Jimmy Stewart (harvey etc.)

I am a major sucker for Jimmy Stewart movies, heck everyone is, but seriously - this guy gets me. There is a long list of 'great' films starring Stewart, ranging from The Philadelphia Story to The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, yet there were a few that are great simply because he is in them. Vertigo, for example, would crumble from the weight of melodrama without Jimmy there to give it some sincerity. If Jimmy Stewart believes in this picture then brother, so do I.

Harvey is somewhere in between. It is a very good movie with a funny cast and a great script, but without Stewart I think the tension of existential weight and ambivalent levity would be lost. See, that was what Stewart really did well, particularly after World War II. He played a man whose internal penchant for optimism had been crushed somewhere along the line, from work and rush hour and disappointment and failure (for Stewart personally it may have been the war). Rarely in a post WWII performance do you not see evidence of this in Stewart's characters. But he was also (almost) always a man who had been able to rise up from it again. Sometimes it made him stronger, sometimes it beat him down - but it was never going to stop him. The majesty of his performances lies in the ability to keep the duality of personas on screen at the same time. Post-war disillusionment wasn't something he could outright escape from, but its presence wasn't stopping him from giving it the finger. The character of Elwood P. Dowd in particular let Jimmy play this to its fullest. Jimmy never pretended that a character as whimsical as Elwood was a simpleton. Instead he was a man who had fought and won. The wisdom of his monologue near the end of the film didn't come without some hard knocks along the way.

Much is made of Jimmy's eternal optimism and aw-shucks personality, but I think that is selling him short. To simply say 'nice guy' or 'American idealist' is to ignore the last two-thirds of his career. A less genuine actor would play a man who has overcome evil or has been overcome by it. Jimmy Stewart wrestled with it, not in some angsty Brando-ish way, but in a way that was familiar to real life. For me that is why there is so much resonance to the person of Jimmy Stewart. Jimmy was charming to be sure, even in his crustiest roles, but his charm was simply a function of his resilience against the existential pull, it gave us the comfort of associating ourselves with him, even while we watched him struggle. This implicit permission to relate to him, to commune with his characters, is something I think is wholly unique to Stewart.

I try to see It's a Wonderful Life annually on the big screen, not because it is a holiday favorite, but because it is such a gripping portrayal of internal struggle. That a man as charming and strong as George Bailey could be brought to the brink of suicide chills me to the bone. It says something about the weight of a broken world. Even more powerful is that a man brought to the brink of suicide by the world can also be inspired by the wonder of it. But that was Stewart's gift. He proved to us that it is possible to live in a world that we are not destined to remain in forever.

(update)

Jessica and I are moving to St. Louis in a few weeks, which also means purchasing our first house. It isn't so much that I haven't been watching movies, but there has been very little time to write about them (unless I steal time at work, which I'm not too inclined to do). Plus I've been a little disappointed in my movie selections lately and feel that the last few movie comments were too negative. The worst classic film is generally better than second-tier television, so I don't know what I'm complaining about. More to come soon, but things may be sparse for awhile.
Thanks for your patience.

flower drum song

Featuring only one truly memorable song, "I Enjoy Being a Girl," (don't even try to convince me that "100,000,000 Miracles" is memorable) the plot of Flower Drum Song plays like a 1940's romantic screwball comedy, which is good when you rely on great characters, not tepid songs, to propel the silliness of the script. Here we get bad songs and the dullest of characters, not the least of which is Mei Li, one of the pivotal female leads. The film's bright point is the character Sammy Fong, who at least does some great Dean Martin-esque mugging for the camera. Linda Low (Nancy Kwan) also deserves some credit for having substantial screen presence, but the material she has to work with is pretty sad.

I'm glad that Rodgers and Hammerstein wanted to do something to expose the world to different aspects of Asian culture, but I don't think that even at the time it was a very enlightened piece. If you enjoy bad pidgin and Asian actors being overdubbed, then Flower Drum Song is right up your alley.

it's a mad mad mad mad world

It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World is an invaluable historical document of classic American comedians and stage performers. It is little else, least of all funny. The lines aren't funny, the characters aren't interesting and the slapstick gags are putrid. Jimmy Durante steals the picture and he dies in the first five minutes! By all means it deserves the full restoration that it sorely needs, but let's not pretend for a minute that anything but the premise is inspired.

I will give a dollar to anyone who can explain to me why I still kinda liked it.