"ROSEMARY'S BABY" JOYOUS OCCASION

          An actor's wife gradually comes to fear that a witches' coven in modern-day 1966 wants her unborn baby for unspeakable Satanic rites.
          Based on Ira Levin's novel, Rosemary's Baby (1968), fantastically directed by Roman Polanski, may well be the most faithful adaptation of a book to film on record. (Helps that Polanski wrote the script.)
          Featuring John Cassavetes as Rosemary's husband Guy Woodburn, the actor willing to do anything to become a big success. Cassavetes, a terrific actor, was unique in that he viewed his film roles as sort of necessary evils to finance what he considered more interesting projects for him to direct (often starring Gena Rowlands), which influenced Martin Scorsese and doubtless countless others.
          The film also boasts music by Christopher Komeda. Even just one piano note struck at the start of the movie conveys the stark mood of a story that sets olde-time horror in the middle of the modern world.
          Mia Farrow, perfectly cast as Rosemary, holds the picture together unforgettably from beginning to end combining charming innocence with a steely core.
         The film is produced by William Castle, known for B-movie horror flicks from ten years prior such as House On Haunted Hill (1959). That one stars Elisha Cook Jr., and in Rosemary's Baby he's the acting landlord who shows the young couple the apartment they will rent in a building with a long dark history, with tenants including two proper Victorian ladies called the Trench Sisters who killed and ate children.
          After the mysterious death of a young woman who was staying with kindly elderly neighbors, those very neighbors, the Castavets, show remarkable enthusiasm for developing a close friendship with the Woodhouses. Regarding the subject of Rosemary becoming pregnant, the Castavets seem particularly keen.
          It's one of the best Gothic stories ever written. And in Roman Polanski's hands, the movie becomes a masterpiece. His dream sequences may well be the best in film. Just in the way he does things. In a separate and random example of his filmmaking excellence, about midway through, when Rosemary spots a Nativity scene in a storefront window display, her hand at her mouth reflected in the window for us subtly foreshadows the horror awaiting her.
          An interesting theme running throughout Polanski's work is the extent and the depth of the horror all around, and how one deals with that. Isolated incidents of horror committed by outsiders on the fringe aren't so interesting to Polanski as the realization that horror is the water in which we all swim.


ROSEMARY'S BABY
Starring Mia Farrow,
John Cassavetes,
Ruth Gordon,
Sidney Blackmer,
Charles Grodin
Written and directed by Roman Polanski
Based on the novel by Ira Levin
Runtime 137 minutes


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

THE BIRTH OF FILM

       

          It begins in France with two brothers, whose very name means "light." And depending on how you look at it, film may be said to begin in France perhaps 10,000 years ago or more, as shown on cave walls such as in Lascaux depicting a sort of proto-animation with additional legs on animals apparently to indicate motion.

          Auguste and Louis Lumiere are the shamanic brothers of a century and a quarter ago whose February of 1895 patent registered for the Cinematograph sets the art and business of movies into motion. December 28 of that year marks the first film screening with 10 short films shown to a paying audience in a Paris café.
          The 1996 documentary The Lumiere Brothers' First Films bestows illuminating perspective on the 2-year period (1895-1897) wherein they made the films which form the bedrock of cinema.
          The world's first film is of workers exiting a factory. Women, mostly. Plus two horses, one dog, and a bicyclist.
          Comparable to Twitter today which allows tweets of no more than 164 characters, the Lumiere Brothers' first films are only 50 seconds long. They show crowds and the working class. The brothers film in the street, recording daily life with striking composition and tremendous movement.
          The brothers make the first film, the first re-make, the first home movie, the first comedy, the first commercial. They invent the tracking shot. And diagonal perspective.
          Film's first masterpiece is of a train's arrival. The first cat in film appears as the star of a cat food commercial. "Wild Boys of the Road" shows urchins playing marbles. Everyday people were clearly hyper-conscious of being recorded, and overacted at every opportunity, comparable to the selfie in social media today.
          In the words of narrator Bertrand Tavernier, the brothers were "interested in everything that could be exciting and entertaining." Their films are even Post Modern, referring to films in their films. They have the first film of someone filming, and that guy is protected by a policeman trying to get into the shot.
          An illuminating fact: the men of 1896 look at the camera much more than do the women, and are generally more selfish and less professional.
          Because Auguste and Louis sent operators all over the world, we can see Indo-China opium smokers, Irish firemen, the Pyramids of Egypt and the Sphinx--all priceless documents from the 1890s. They went to Turkey and Japan, Moscow and Berlin. In New York and Chicago, because of the Lumiere Brothers, we can see that literally almost every man has the same mustache!
          Many of the films were lost for a century. Luckily, we can see "The Grotesque Roller-Skater," featuring a fat guy skating. Fortunately also the brothers filmed a tribute to their contemporary, the first great director, French magician George Melies, chiefly notable for his groundbreaking A Trip to the Moon. (Martin Scorsese's Hugo (2011) features Ben Kingsley as Melies in a brilliantly imaginative love-letter to the movies.)
          Long before the Brothers Cohen, Wachowski, or Farrelly, the Lumieres brought the light of cinema to the world. To see the first documents displaying motion, sometimes with accidents, a quick search will reveal the freely available 1996 documentary online.



Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

MPAA DOC RATES FAVORABLY

          The year is 1921. Silent cinema funnyman Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle goes off on a helluva toot in a San Francisco hotel and winds up accused of rape and manslaughter. Hearst newspapers have a field day digging up dirt, and the bad press results in Hollywood trying to save face and protect itself from government intrusion by forming in 1922 the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA).
          The first president of this organization has no experience in film whatsoever. He is, in point of fact, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, one William Hays. The purpose of his post is to provide the appearance of "moral guidance" in the art of cinema. By 1930 he devises a loose code which we know by his name. By 1934 his repressive and arbitrary set of rules becomes strictly enforced.
          Cut to 1966: President Lyndon Johnson's "special consultant" Jack Valenti is appointed head of the MPPDA. He changes the name to the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), and in 1968 replaces the antiquated and fuzzy Hays Code with the antiquated and fuzzy film rating system which still exists today and is shrouded in mystery.
          In theory, the MPAA exists to avoid government censorship. In reality, the MPAA is headquartered in Washington, D.C. No one ever becomes the head of the MPAA by doing well at movies or having any experience in art. It's always a political appointment, and if this system existed in any other country, people here would call it propaganda. Currently all of this information may freely be found online.
          The MPAA is the only ratings board that does not disclose who its board members are. In crucial respects it bears resemblance to the Electoral College System. Just as the Electoral College System wields true control over Presidential elections--we're not allowed to know the name of each state's electorate whose secret vote secures the Presidency--similarly, true power in film is held, not by artists, but by a secretive organization about which most people have little or no knowledge.
          One documentary on the MPAA does exist. This Film is Not Yet Rated (2006) proves generally revealing. Featuring insightful commentary by several directors (including Kimberly Peirce, John Waters, Matt Stone, and Kevin Smith), Not Yet Rated focuses primarily on the MPAA's edict against sexuality. In particular, scenes depicting female pleasure. Violence against women, however, is routinely considered perfectly acceptable. This may possibly bear a relationship not with so-called Puritan roots, but rather with advertising precepts and the psychology of militarism. In  Europe, we learn, the opposite is true. Whereas European movies depict sexuality comparatively freely, violence in any form, but particularly violence with guns, is considered undesirable.
          Although the 98-minute film, freely available online, is entertaining, informative, and therefore well worth watching, it's far from thorough. It may prove of interest to viewers, for example, to discover that no one seems to know what it was exactly that Valenti did for LBJ. The Texas-born son of Italian immigrants started out in the advertising department of an oil company called Humble Oil. (Humble Oil eventually changed its name to Exxon.) Whatever he did for LBJ, he started that job on Nov. 22, 1963, hours after the assassination of President Kennedy. He was present in the Dallas motorcade, and can be seen in a photograph taken aboard Air Force One when LBJ is being sworn in as JFK's successor.
          When Not Yet Rated was released in 2006, 90% of all US media were owned by a grand total of six corporations. (Apparently that number still holds; in 1983 it was fifty companies.) Anyone interested in the planet's number one form of art and entertainment would be well served to learn a little bit about the highly secretive censorship organization with zero transparency, zero accountability, and ultimate control of the images which program the perceptions of the world.


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"CLAUDIUS" RULES

          TV's reigning mini-series.
          Based on the novels by renown scholar Robert Graves, the BBC 1976 production I, Claudius brings to vivid life generations of inbred, spoiled, and delusional Romans from the time of Augustus Caesar on down through a steady line of wackos having to get periodically offed.
          More timely now and pertinent than when first aired, I, Claudius begins in the winter of the unlikely emperor's life. He records the history which unfolds before us with the intention to hide the finished product from all humanity for 1,900 years. The reason for this device is to create a sense of timeliness for the audience, and it works about as well as anything.
          In the title role, Derek Jacobi stammers, limps, and twitches toward acting immortality as the afflicted son of the noble Drusus, brother of Tiberius, whose mother Livia plots and schemes like a spider in a web through the power of her husband the emperor.
          As Augustus, Brian Blessed plays the role of a lifetime. "I'm supposed to rule an empire, and I can't even rule my own family!" exasperated he expostulates. His is one of many standout parts in the 668-minute epic family drama rife with engrossing characters.
          Commingled with corruption and petty place-seeking is the suspicion that there are those who would oppose the usurpation and consolidation of privilege. Augustus fears being overthrown. But as bad as he is, in the long run he's the best of the bunch.
          Caligula, for example, fancies himself a god. When he postures glittering in gossamer finery and struts about in a gold bikini, those who do not laud his talents loudly enough court peril, and are therefore careful to clap harder, always harder, in the false and desperate display of praise as is typical during reigns of terror.
          In the 35th-anniversary edition DVD, an insightful documentary on the production reveals much as key cast members and director Herbert Wise individually recollect. It's a 74-minute gem well worth seeking. John Hurt, who came to fame as Caligula, details some of the choices that he made in playing the part, such as getting into bed with his great grandmother and telling her off.
          Lacking a huge budget, the production instead utilizes filmmaking skill. Part comedy, part horror, at all times thoroughly interesting, I, Claudius showcases multiple unforgettable performances, and does the job so well, it's almost a shock to learn that the ancient Romans weren't really all that British.


I, CLAUDIUS
Starring Derek Jacobi,
Brian Blessed,
Sian Phillips,
John Hurt,
George Baker,
Patrick Stewart,
Margaret Tyzack,
James Faulkner
Directed by Herbert Wise
Written by Jack Pulman
Based on the novels by Robert Graves
Runtime 668 minutes


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE