'Have You Seen...?'

by David Thomson

  Plus the extraordinary presence of Belmondo and Karina. Of course, this is Karina’s great test in a part that is half Lolita and half Phyllis Dietrichson. She is magnificent, pained, sensual, impulsive; she is the moment, the seconds. While he is the museum, the bookstore, the manuscript, the corrective, reflective process. And still a man brought back from living death so that he can die properly, And the way to death for him is a simple equation: l’amour = la mort. The last great romantic movie. The end of Godard’s youth.

  A Place in the Sun (1951)

  Theodore Dreiser’s An American Tragedy (1925) had been filmed before, by Sternberg in 1931, with Sylvia Sidney as the female lead, playing Roberta Alden, the girl Clyde Griffiths meets in the shirt-collar factory. But it’s distinctive of George Stevens’s remake that now the rich girl Angela (Elizabeth Taylor) has become central in her rapturous agony with George Eastman (Montgomery Clift). The Clift-Taylor bond is often cited as an example of screen chemistry. And that leaves the factory girl (Shelley Winters) as not just plain, whining, and awkward but as someone the entire audience wants to see murdered—so great is the gravitational pull of the “perfect” romance between George and Angela.

  To say that this is a discredit to Dreiser and unfair to life is not going far enough. A Place in the Sun cheats. On the other hand, it is an overwhelming romance, and one of those films that lets us share the madness of unfettered desire. This result would not be as interesting if the film were not meticulously made. But one can feel Stevens’s own pain over his hero’s quandary and the telephoto close-ups that he employed for the lovers’ big scenes—the kisses so close and so far—are inspired and very moving.

  The screenplay was the work of Harry Brown and Michael Wilson, though Ivan Moffat had an important role as an assistant. And it’s plain from the script that the social ironies in Dreiser are being abandoned for a straightforward story of American humility making it all the way to the top. At the outset, George hitchhiking (in a leather jacket) sees a highway poster of a girl who resembles Angela and who is advertising “Eastman” clothes (and happiness in wealth). He is the poor sheep of the family, with a religious mother (Anne Revere), but he is Montgomery Clift, arguably the angel of black-and-white cinema in 1951. And when we meet the rich people—the Eastmans chez lui—they are decent, urbane, good-natured—very far from the rich as Dreiser knew them. Angela looks like Elizabeth Taylor’s eighteen years, but she is a paragon, and she eclipses any sad memories of Shelley Winters.

  And so the death occurs (though the film lets us think of it as an accident, despite George’s deep desire for it). The scenes in the woods near Tahoe are very atmospheric, and the gloom that gathers lasts through the trial to the death cell. William Mellor’s photography is outstanding, and the Franz Waxman score is one of the most potent Hollywood ever made.

  So a great novel has been gelded, and a “murder” is set aside by our own longings. And it works. What remains is one of the most intriguing examples of Hollywood offering desire in place of realism, common sense, or morality. Stevens, the score, and the script won Oscars, and shelley winters was nominated, but the film hinges still on the exquisite distress of the impossible glance between Clift and Taylor—one of the great Hollywood romances just because it was ruined.

  Planet of the Apes (1968)

  It was in the air. Anthropologist Desmond Morris had a popular best seller with The Naked Ape in 1967. In Stanley Kubrick’s portentous 2001, the world begins with apes tossing their bone in the air and deciding what to do with it. The first entirely synthetic pop group was achieved in the laboratories in the sixties: the Monkees. And Arthur P. Jacobs, a producer, had the idea for Planet of the Apes at Fox. There was a novel, by Pierre Boulle (the author of The Bridge on the River Kwai), and it was itself a little best-sellery in the notion that a hair’s breadth separated us from the apes (try taking your ape to Bringing Up Baby—they don’t get it). The screenplay of the first film was given over to Michael Wilson and Rod Serling. Serling, of course, was the man behind Twilight Zone, on television, and a talented, witty writer. Alas, that sprightliness seldom found its way into Planet of the Apes.

  But the idea was that a band of American astronauts under the dogged command of Charlton Heston crash on an unknown planet. They don’t know where they are or what time it is. But the realization dawns that this is Earth still in an age when the apes are in charge. Thus, the men have to avoid the condition of slavery that is regarded as their proper status. This allowed for a fair amount of sardonic commentary on the supposed differences between the two, most of which was delivered by running characters played by Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall—the Diana Trilling and Gore Vidal of the ape world. As you may imagine, the ape kingdom was run by far worse brutes and tyrants, riding on horseback and given to very nasty ape jokes.

  Franklin Schaffner directed the pilot (as it were). And I can only say that it’s a style that monkeys wouldn’t sit through. I have no leg to stand on, because the first film had rentals of $15 million, thus encouraging sequels like Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) and Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), in which the direction was reassigned and Heston gracefully withdrew. As it was, Chuck had looked pretty good in animal skins, and he had had a thing going with Linda Harrison, who was rather more in her own skin.

  The points made about the irony in the reversal of roles soon palled, and when Tim Burton tried to revive the franchise in 2001, there seemed nothing left but cruelty and the ape suits. But we all love monkeys, and Kong—whether a trembling doll or a man in a suit—can be very winning. Still, for myself I think I prefer real gorillas and Sigourney Weaver picking edible bugs out of each other’s hair in Gorillas in the Mist, or Charlotte Rampling eyeing her monkey in Nagisa Oshima’s neglected Max, Mon Amour. Best of all, I like the moment when the ape head comes off in Blonde Venus and you can see that it’s Dietrich. As for the preposterous idea of the apes running the world—let them make sense of the movies first!

  Platinum Blonde (1931)

  Until late in the day, Columbia was confused over what to call this film. One title was The Gilded Cage—as if to describe the fate of the young reporter who marries into a high society family and then feels trapped. But others favored Gallagher, the name of the woman reporter who loves the man and then waits to see if he will give up his social prize. Late in the day, the studio harked back to The Blonde Lady (referring to the society girl—the other point of the triangle) but went one better. Taking advantage of Jean Harlow’s unique hair, they called the film Platinum Blonde and even launched a contest to see if anyone in the audience could copy the exact hue of Harlow’s hair. No one could.

  Yet, truly “Jean Harlow in Platinum Blonde” is not as exact or acute as “Robert Williams in The Gilded Cage.” Stew Smith (Williams) is sent by his paper to the Schuyler mansion because the son of the house is having a romance with a showgirl. There are incriminating letters involved. Stew gets hold of them and instead of asking for money he simply gives them back to Anne Schuyler (Harlow). That sets off a romance. A marriage ensues. But Stew isn’t “right” in the Schuyler house, and in the end he learns that and he goes off with Gallagher (Loretta Young), his more than loyal chum.

  Now, extract the real story from the title and you have: Young man becomes infatuated by class. He marries into it and learns his mistake. He opts for the real class of his natural partner. Add to that the fact that Robert Williams died of peritonitis just a few days after the film opened. He was thirty-two, with a striking resemblance to Scott Fitzgerald—lazy, sexy, a great talker, a wit. How good was he? Well, good enough to make us realize quite forcefully that this film is mistitled and that the rapport between Williams and Loretta Young is the most interesting thing on view.

  So, it’s an odd dislocation, and no kindness to Harlow, although Frank Capra throws in a couple of great shots where you get Jean’s breasts on a plate. One can’t tell about Williams, but there’s enough there to leave one wondering and wistful. Young is
better than she ever was (and there’s a shot of her bare back to die for) when she added moral underlining to her work. But the idea of class (or privilege) being something a smart young man might be seduced by is so much more intriguing than two-thirds of the ideas in American comedies. And this film does lead its hero toward a quite necessary divorce—in turn, that’s a way of defining vitality and freedom as something the rich don’t have.

  So, almost incidentally, it’s one of Frank Capra’s most appealing pictures—written by Dorothy Howell and Jo Swerling, with dialogue by Robert Riskin from an idea by Harry E. Chandlee and Douglas Churchill. More still, for 1931 this is very agile and alert and a film that shifts its own basis as it proceeds. What seems like a comedy is really a love story. And there’s a lesson: Hide your true genre in the lineaments of another.

  Platoon (1986)

  Platoon is clearly the high point of the fierce, self-lacerating arc known as Oliver Stone. And it says something very intriguing, something occasionally remarked upon by nations that have had to fight the U.S., which is that, despite every strenuous argument of justification for each and every war, there is something in some Americans that just loves war, and which often loses sight of foreign enemies because it is really waging a contest within, a battle between purity and its opposite. One element of this America is its inescapable habit of fighting other Americans. Platoon illustrates this thesis perfectly. For here is a movie that bothers to say very little about the reasons for the Vietnam War, but sees it in the lurid light of the partisanship within America. Thus, it’s the battle between two sergeants, Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Elias (Willem Dafoe)—between compromise and the denial thereof. It’s another version of the struggle between Robert Ryan and Aldo Ray in Anthony Mann’s seminal picture, Men in War (1957).

  Yes, it’s true, Oliver Stone was in Vietnam, and he has not been shy about the way the experience shaped him. Moreover, I think it can be said that the sense of the jungle, the unexpected terror of combat, and the sheer urge to survive are brilliantly rendered in Platoon. The feeling we have of being there in that jungle with these guys is overwhelming, and the film offers no relief or rest. That is where its power lies, just as its meaning is in Barnes vs. Elias—the conflict between an austere, cruel, warped martinet and a loose, hip, druggy freedom fighter. Of course, the hero-worshipper in Stone makes both men extraordinary fighters: The gentle Elias has magical instincts and exceptional courage. And Barnes is the kind of sergeant fearful troops cling to. But Stone’s own allegiances are too clear and too obvious. He wants Elias because Elias doesn’t believe in being in Vietnam.

  The film and its power struggle are weighed through the eyes of a newcomer (Charlie Sheen), and virtually every minute is electric. Of course, the opposite is true in real war: boredom is the constant climate—and boredom is never going to be Oliver Stone’s subject. His platoon is under intense pressure, and it follows that a kind of hysteria dominates the film. This is unquestionably powerful, but it makes it hard for complex ideas to breathe and work upon us. So Platoon, I think, has dated and simplified where other Vietnam War studies seem more challenging.

  But Stone would have said he wanted to convey the feeling—and at that he succeeds. The photography, by Robert Richardson, was groundbreaking in its natural power of hallucination. The rigorous editing, by Claire Simpson, won an Oscar. And the platoon members are a terrific team of young actors. Apart from the leads, there are Forest Whitaker, Francesco Quinn, John C. McGinley, Richard Edson, Kevin Dillon, Reggie Johnson, and Keith David.

  It won the Best Picture Oscar as well as Best Director for Stone.

  The Player (1992)

  Even if you accept the view that 3 Women is a major Robert Altman film (and not everyone does), still there had been years of wandering or uncertainty after 1977. Fifteen of them, filled with theatrical adaptations, a few real films, but nothing that seemed to grip Altman himself. I suspect he felt this, because The Player opens with maybe the second-most-famous opening shot in American film—an immense, intricate tracking shot. Number one is Orson Welles’s Touch of Evil, and that film marked a return of one of Hollywood’s mavericks. It suggests that, from the outset, Altman knew The Player was his material and his comeback.

  But all of that depends rather on whether the Hollywood depicted in this sardonic film is a place anyone would want to get back to. As written by Michael Tolkin, and adapted from his novel, The Player is a shrewd, general satire—shrewd because it picks on no real villains or no one really responsible. And if no one is hurt or offended, then the satirist can hope to stay in work. Nevertheless, and granted that it was made on the eve of the real dominance of computer and cell phone (so that it now has a technological charm), this is a very good, tart portrait of Hollywood attitudes to others and the self. Indirectly, therefore, it is a lucid explanation as to why the films coming out of the system are so compromised, and negligible.

  In the end, despite its wit and smarts, The Player is similarly neutralized. But nothing takes away from a much younger man’s deftness with the camera (and the microphones) and his uncanny ability to get at the nuances of social interaction. The thriller structure is neither thrilling nor especially interesting: it’s a kind of MacGuffin, the string that holds the bait—the money, the success. What the film gets brilliantly are the power shifts, the paranoid intimations, the total insecurity. And Altman’s Steadicam coverage and long takes are very good at catching that vulnerability. So, in matters of pure style and the use of space and barriers, windows, and vantages, the film is far more interesting than its set “story.” As so often in Altman—and this is key—you feel that he doesn’t quite care what happens to people. There really is a misanthrope in there. Short Cuts is the film The Player is preparing for—and a tryout with its soft, treacherous light.

  Still, it’s an entertainment for anyone interested in L.A., the movies, or Altman, and you’ll never get bored with actors like these to study: Tim Robbins (always equivocal as Griffin Mill), Greta Scacchi (wasted), Fred Ward, Whoopi Goldberg (not very good), Peter Gallagher, Brion James, Cynthia Stevenson, Vincent D’Onofrio, Dean Stockwell, Richard E. Grant, Dina Merrill, Sydney Pollack, and many others, some of whom are what are known as cameos.

  Playtime (1967)

  Films cannot help but be of their time, and Jacques Tati’s Playtime had the misfortune of being reviewed in most places in 1968, a year in which it was hard for anyone of a radical temperament not to be uplifted by the possibilities of change and by the energy of young anger remaking the world. And, of course, anger is one of those emotions expressly missing from Playtime. Yet, over the years, its reputation has grown, and so I recall with great pleasure the 2006 festival at Telluride when Playtime in 70 mm was reaffirmed as a masterpiece—and by no one less than Jean-Pierre Gorin, perhaps the epitome of “1968.”

  As he introduced the film, Gorin made a distinction between comedians of pathos (Chaplin) and those of space (Keaton), and said that perhaps Tati was both. But it is a great mistake, I think, to see Playtime being in any way affected by that path of social criticism that deplores modern times. The world in Playtime may be silly, vain, pretentious—it may involve us all making idiots of ourselves—but there is no blame, no axe to grind. Rather, the fatuous world it describes in such omnivorous, loving detail is a source of joy.

  But this kind of talk is idle if one does not stress that Playtime is a movie. It is a film that stays steady and affirmative in its faith in the long shot and the crowded frame. The camera is backed away, at an amazing (and amazed) distance, from which it can contain what seems to be an entire city. It comes as a shock to hear that Tati actually built this city, or the various aspects of it that intrigued him: the airport, the office, the restaurant, the shop. We feel we are seeing Paris, or any metropolis. That is a tribute to extraordinary precision in the art direction, but it is also a proof of the tranquil, amiable gaze that Tati maintains. There is nothing like the inclination to see ugliness, or unkindness, that actually bui
lds pathos in Chaplin. Rather, Tati is charmed by the existence of things in space—and that is the beauty in Keaton.

  The “action” of the film consists of the passage of a band of American tourists. These are the chief source of plot or dialogue, although their words are remote, isolated from synchronization, and so dubbed in as to seem dreamlike. Yet they are often funny and sharp enough—and they were done for the film by the columnist Art Buchwald, whose delicious squat figure appears onscreen toward the close of the movie.

  The restaurant scene is the set piece of humor, simple duration, and human silliness, but as it builds—and as the viewer is looking this way and that so as not to miss something—so the sense of beholding the turmoil of life is irresistible. And the result is unique. Yes, this society is accident-prone and deserves to collapse or destroy itself, but its energy, its persistence, is beautiful and inspiring. It’s like watching cells grow and divide. What alarmed 1968, I suspect, was the authentic optimism of the film, its exhilaration, and the gentle growing fondness between, say, the dark girl in green and Tati himself, who wanders in and out of his own world, auteur and bystander. Truly, a great film, the secret to the crowded frame.

  Plein Soleil (1959)

  It is often called Purple Noon in English-speaking movie houses, and it is an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley—the novel that was remade forty years later by Anthony Minghella under the name elected by Ms. Highsmith. So it’s worth pointing out that the René Clément film is the more faithful to the novel, and it is the one that has Alain Delon as Tom Ripley.