"STAGECOACH" ROLLICKING

          Soaring music, towering mesas, and wild Western wonders abound in John Ford's 1939 rouser, Stagecoach. Starring Claire Trevor as the shady lady with a heart of gold despised by the local wives, and introducing in his first A-list film starring role one Marion Morrison, aka John Wayne, as Ringo Kid.
          Ringo has just escaped from prison, and is on his way to Lordsburg seeking revenge on the man who killed his brother. Luckily for Ringo, the stagecoach also headed for Lordsburg happens by when Ringo's horse gives out. Unluckily for Ringo, the marshal is there riding shotgun.
          Shot in beautiful black and white, Stagecoach rolls along saturating the screen with indelible images from Ford's legendary cinematic eye. His rare facility with the medium accounts for the film being so well done. It's in the way he uses light and shadow, the way he fills his frame. Always interesting, never complicated.
          That also describes the story. Just a handful of passengers in a coach proving all the world's a stage. It's a story about a few people going from one place to another, yet with that simple premise, a legendary picture. Think Grand Hotel on wheels, as rustic as that one is fancy.
          Corny, too. "Give me coffee," says the drunk doctor (excellently played by Thomas Mitchell) when duty calls for him to sober up, "black coffee. Lots of it." As if that would do any good, to tack the jitters on top of being drunk.
          And the whole movie is like that. Old-time cornball about as real with the West as Buck Rogers is with space. Keeping this in mind, we know with John Ford we won't be seeing anything approaching an accurate depiction of Native Americans. One scene has a bank manager whining about how the Apaches "strike like rattlesnakes," and the next moment a whiskey peddler calls for Christian charity among the passengers, but not for the Apaches.
          That's the big disappointment. A moral dilemma, even. To watch an old John Ford Western is to bathe in a tainted tub, yet to consign him to perdition is to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The best filmmakers cite his influence repeatedly. Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg.
          There's a solution: A film about Native Americans arriving on European shores in ever-increasing numbers. With all of the pertinent details inverted to make a serious point while entertaining in old school black and white. A movie made by Native Americans, starring Native Americans, with Native Americans playing Europeans, and Europeans having zero say, while providing the major conflict, and doing things poorly, and dropping like flies while the good guys kill them in corny ways. Huge potential here.
          Andy Devine co-stars as the amiable stagecoach driver with the cracked voice. Andy's the barometer. If Andy likes a feller, then that feller's a-ok. And if he don't, then the feller ain't. Co-starring also John Carradine as a superfluous riverboat gambler.
          Of the two women aboard, one is supposedly respectable. The bank manager, also, is supposedly respectable. Today we rarely see, if ever, such a character taken to task. "What's good for the banks is good for the country!" the bank manager nervously assures. Looking suspicious.
          Ah, the classic Western desert: Where the skulls of cows liven up the view like well-placed knickknacks in a drawing-room. A huge component of Ford's success is, of course, the Arizona-Utah region known as Monument Valley. The natural scenery itself steals the show. That great big Western feeling that comes from wide open spaces, the blank page of possibility rolling ever on.
          Carrying the capacity to win over viewers not necessarily fans of Westerns, Stagecoach exemplifies the Hollywood Golden Age classic which, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse, helped shape perceptions of America within the county, and beyond, and still does.
          Available through Netflix and elsewhere online.


STAGECOACH
Starring Claire Trevor,
John Wayne,
Andy Devine,
Thomas Mitchell,
John Carradine,
Louise Platt,
Donald Meek,
Burton Churchill,
Tim Holt
Directed by John Ford
Written by Dudley Nichols
Based on a story by Ernest Haycox
Runtime 96 minutes


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and 
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"GRAPES OF WRATH" UNSTOPPABLE VINTAGE

          Henry Fonda's career-defining role as Tom Joad, star of literary legend John Steinbeck's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, as interpreted by cinematic legend John Ford.
          The 1940 two-time Oscar-winning masterpiece from the director most associated with Westerns is fantastically shot in black and white showing the most beautiful kind of ugly.
          At the start of the story Tom Joad returns to his folks' house after a four-year stint in the pen for homicide. However, in that time everything has changed. Weather conditions and bank regulations forcing the Dustbowl Migration, the Joad family has pulled up old roots in Oklahoma to start life over in California with the promise of picking that sweet bringer of wine, the grape.
          Featuring Jane Darwell in her Oscar-winning performance as the sturdy, decent, and enduring matriarch, Ma Joad. (Years later she plays the Bird Woman in Mary Poppins.) Also co-starring John Carradine as the preacher who says, "Maybe there ain't no sin and there ain't no justice, it's just what people does."
          The language alone is enough to merit viewing. When Fonda gets a ride hitch-hiking, he says he'd a walked 'er but his dogs were pooped-out. Later, regarding the homicide, he says he knocked the other guy's head "plum to squash." And of Ma, Tom admits, "I nearly seen her beat a peddler to death with a live chicken."
          An impactful theme of the film: You can't trust authority when it swings a stick. (But a live chicken works fine.) This refers specifically to the abuses done to migrant workers. As is noted in the film, if someone can "get a fight goin', they can call in the cops, say things ain't orderly."
          Another important aspect of the film is the way it shows how government can be used by the people, and with genuine decency. Government housing from the Department of Agriculture, for example.
          One thing about the Joads, they're tough. They have nothing, but still help others when they can. And when their overpacked truck gets a flat, the kids just laugh. The Joads get a lot out of life with what little they've got, and they're a better kind of people than the ones who try to take advantage of them.
          The Grapes of Wrath is largely about the rich creating and abusing the poor, but it's also about people being human and decent.
          As pertinent now as it was when released, if not more so, The Grapes of Wrath is one of the few movies that belongs to everyone, and should be seen by all.
          Freely available online.


THE GRAPES OF WRATH
Starring Henry Fonda,
Jane Darwell,
John Carradine,
Charley Grapewin,
Russell Simpson,
Dorris Bowdon
Directed by John Ford
Written by Nunnally Johnson
Based on the novel by John Steinbeck
Runtime 129 minutes


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and 
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

SWEDISH BESTSELLER TURNS TOP-NOTCH FILM

          Hunt this one down.
          Unlikely title, unlikely poster, unlikely everything aside, A Man Called Ove (2015) is exactly the reason why film is an art.
          Based on Fredrik Backman's hit novel, Hannes Holm's adaptation is the amusing tale of a grumpy old man who wants to commit suicide. What makes it funny is that when he tries to do it, things keep happening that make him have to stop and grumpily help other people. Because they don't know how to do things right.
          Other people such as: the new neighbors Patrick and Parvaneh (Pars). The latter, who has two young daughters, is from Iran. (Here Backman, who is himself married to a woman from Iran, draws on personal experience.)
          For many viewers the description which best fits Ove will automatically call to mind the movie Grumpy Old Men (1993), starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. This is not that movie. Marbled in equal parts with the humor is the drama of how Ove became embittered.
          Through periodic flashbacks we come to understand the course of his life. His mother died when he was a boy, and so his father raised him alone. Most movies that deal with parental relationships focus on one parent only. Nor does this film buck that trend.
          In a similar arbitrary choice, Ove is the sort of Swede who has decided to bestow undying affection for all Saab vehicles, and to feel the opposite toward all other car companies and all other cars, especially Volvo. This is because the character of Ove (sounds like "Oo-va" and means "blade" in Old Norse) is such an exacting fellow. Before anyone can sit in his car, he has to spread out newspapers over the seats in order to protect them. However, when trying to kill himself in his living room, he doesn't think to close the drapes. And can therefore be easily seen and interrupted.
          Rolf Lassgard's performance in particular merits note. He brings a lot of life to Ove, especially when grieving over his late wife, Sonja (Engvoll), whose grave he often visits. He spends most of his time fussing around his small neighborhood playing self-appointed enforcer of rules, picking up cigarette butts from the sidewalk, making certain that gates are properly shut, and generally going ballistic when he sees people driving where they shouldn't.
          In spite of this busy schedule he maintains, and in spite of his intractable demeanor, Ove develops an unlikely friendship with Parvaneh. And it is on this friendship that the story hinges.
          Tom Hanks, by the way, according to information found online, is looking into making and starring in an American version of the movie.
          Heartwarming but not sentimental, A Man Called Ove is a great little gem available through Netflix, Amazon, and wherever fine videos are sold.


A MAN CALLED OVE
Starring Rolf Lassgard,
Bahar Pars,
Filip Berg,
Ida Engvoll,
Tobias Almborg,
Chatarina Larsson,
Johan Widerberg
Written and directed by Hannes Holm
Based on the novel by Fredrik Backman
Runtime 116 minutes
Rated PG-13


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE
and hosts
FILM FOCUS
on
LAGRANDEALIVETV

"CHUCK BERRY LIVE" HIGHLY ROCKOMMENDED

          London, BBC Theatre, 1972:
          Wearing a snazzy psychedelic shirt with huge pointed collar, tremendous ruffles at the cuffs, and the purple bell bottoms of the gods, Chuck Berry rocks it his way, a true American original doing his inimitable and incalculably influential rock n' roll thing in front of an appreciative audience of English teens.
          The showmanship, the charisma, the physicality, the style of one of rock's few true first greats is on display for all to enjoy. Long and lean, sporting trademark sideburns, slicked-back hair, and tiny mustache, Berry delivers flawless verbal gymnastics, changing up and somewhat updating his staples, notably "Reelin' and Rockin'".
          It's easy to see now that Berry was at the top of his game eighteen years into his career. He does the duck walk, yes, but more impressive than that he does the splits, and hops around, still playing guitar.
          Included in his dynamic, fluid performance, Berry plucks terrifically with his guitar up on his shoulder against his neck. With his easygoing energetic style, it's easy to see why Chuck Berry so impressed and influenced the Rolling Stones' Keith Richards and countless others.
          Incidentally, 1987's concert film/documentary Hail! Hail! Rock 'n Roll shows some interesting moments between Keith and Chuck rehearsing together for the occasion of Chuck's 60th birthday. Berry had a temper. And Richards has said in multiple interviews that when he couldn't resist picking up and holding his idol's guitar, his idol caught him doing it and punched him in the face.
          A checkered past did little for polishing Berry's image, but, that also being the image of rock, not taking a polish arguably enhances the shine. Incredibly, two of his greatest contemporaries, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard, still perform, as indeed did Berry himself until his passing just a couple years ago.
          It speaks to his talent as an artist that he was able to adapt as well as he did, psychedelia not being part of early rock, and he changes the songs so they don't sound locked into antiquity, but remain malleable and alive.
          In terms of his band, Rocking Horse, the members of which remain essentially faceless, the guy in the big hat with the long hair on piano--improbable as it sounds--does seem to rather clearly prove that Johnny Depp time-traveled. Which is bizarre because we didn't know he played piano.
          Preceded by Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters recording sessions of their own in London, Chuck Berry's performance captures him at his peak.
          Check out Chuck belting "Johnny B. Goode", "Let it Rock", and plenty more for an hour and forty-six minutes of magic freely available on YouTube.



         

And speaking of YouTube, look for
Stewart Kirby's Film Focus 
on LaGrandeAlive.TV

Film Focus, the Sentinel of Cinema





Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"EXCALIBUR" MEDIEVAL MOVIE HOLY GRAIL

          Authoritative, sober, grounded in mythology, John Boorman's Excalibur (1981) is the tale of the Sorcerer, Merlin, the Coming of a King, and the Sword of Power.
          Recent attempts at King Arthur and also Robin Hood in film totally botched it and tanked hard because, as even merely the trailers clearly reveal, the filmmakers give zero attention to authenticity and literary grounding.
          Excalibur flat-out looks and sounds exactly right. Lots of hacking and screaming, nobody pulling any modern mixed martial arts moves flying around on cables, none of that phony computer animation look, just real filmmaking with a filmmaker's eye crafting the frames.
          Boasting great music by Richard Wagner and Carl Orff--the latter being responsible for the famous "O Fortuna" piece from Carmina Burana--Excalibur is the tale of power, lust, and deception woven into the very fabric of Western culture.
          It begins with Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne) coveting Igrayne (played by the director's daughter, Katrine Boorman), the wife of the Duke of Cornwall. With a wizard's help, Uther gets his wish, but the product of this union must go to the wizard.
          The product is Arthur (Nigel Terry), and the wizard is of course Merlin (excellently played by Nicol Williamson). Long before Dumbledore or even Gandalf, there was Merlin. The Disney cartoon The Sword and the Stone, based on T.H. White's The Once and Future King, presents a silly curmudgeon as out of keeping with the character as the youthful "early years" presentation in a recent TV show. Williamson's portrayal of the Druid-like figure has the right balance of eccentricity and mystery.
          Williamson, by the way, plays Little John to Sean Connery's Robin Hood in the fantastic 1976 movie Robin and Marian, also starring Audrey Hepburn.
          Excalibur features terrific supporting performances by Liam Neeson and Patrick Stewart as Knights of Camelot, and features also Helen Mirren as Arthur's evil half-sister, Morgana.
          The Dark Ages, of course, refers to a few centuries in Europe following the collapse of the Roman Empire. On the one hand the tale of King Arthur is the story of a sun god who enlightens, descends, and will return. So Arthur's Round Table not only heralds the coming of pizza, it signifies equality, justice, and order.
          Boorman, who also directed Hell in the Pacific, Deliverance, and The Emerald Forest (starring his son Charley), was likely influenced by John Steinbeck's last and unfinished book, The Acts of King Arthur and His Noble Knights, for which Steinbeck studied Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. Conceivably, Boorman, jealous of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), tried his best to make a funnier version, and simply failed. We'll never know.
          Quest for the fair Guenevere, the unbeatable Lancelot, the well-armed Lady of the Lake, nasty little Mordred, and the whole Excalibur gang online through Netflix and other sources.


EXCALIBUR
Starring Nigel Terry,
Helen Mirren,
Nicol Williamson,
Nicholas Clay,
Cherie Lunghi,
Paul Geoffrey,
Robert Addie,
Liam Neeson,
Patrick Stewart
Directed by John Boorman
Written by Rospo Pallenberg, John Boorman
Based on Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Mallory
Runtime 140 minutes
Rated PG


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

HERZOG'S "CAVE" IN-DEPTH

          In 1994 three men found a cave in France with 32,000 year-old paintings inside, which is more than twice as old as the previous oldest cave paintings known.
          At some point in its history, a landslide sealed off the cave, creating a time capsule.
          At the time of the renown German filmmaker Werner Herzog's visit to Chauvet Cave with a camera crew, we see the entrance to the cave protected by a massive steel door "like a bank vault."
          Lascaux Cave, well-known worldwide for the similar paintings by Paleolithic artists, was shut down because tourist breath caused mold to grow on the walls.
          Herzog's visit to Chauvet is limited by a time constraint and the stipulation that no one touch anything inside the cave, nor step off of the two foot-wide metal walkway.
          Inside, painting of animals "look so fresh, there were initial doubts to their authenticity."
          Mammoths, cave bear, horses, bison, lions, and more dance across the walls, contours of the rock taken into account to create greater effect.
          The play of light and shadow from flickering torches might have been intended by the artists to help bring the renderings to life, but in some cases illusions of movement were definitely included. A bison on one panel painted with eight legs gives the impression of movement in nearly "a form of proto-cinema," and a wooly rhino with lines of multiple horns looks "like frames in an animated film."
          Using lasers, scientists have mapped the cave so well, the "position of every feature in the cave is known."
          We see wavering lines of delicate rock curtains, stalactites and stalagmites shining with otherworldly crystals, cave bear skulls littering the floor covered in tens of thousands of years of calcite deposits incorporating the bones like candle wax. For the viewer, Cave of Forgotten Dreams is an opportunity to visit the past without hurting it.
          In his 71 films, Herzog, who was born in Bavaria, has directed such other notable documentaries as Encounters at the End of the World (2007), his Antarctic adventure, and Wheel of Time (2003), wherein Herzog goes to India to film the world's largest Buddhist ritual.
          In addition to making unforgettable documentaries, Herzog directs major motion pictures featuring intense performances, such as Aguirre, Wrath of God and Rescue Dawn.
          To see "one of the greatest works of art in the world" through the camera of the visionary auteur, look for the 2010 film available on Netflix.


CAVE OF FORGOTTEN DREAMS
Starring Werner Herzog,
Jean Clottes,
Julien Monney,
Jean-Michel Geneste,
Michel Philippe,
Carole Fritz,
Dominique Baffier
Written and directed by Werner Herzog
Runtime 90 minutes

Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE

"NIGHT OF THE HUNTER" CAPTIVATING NOIR

          A father of two robs a bank during the Great Depression. Just before the cops can nab him at his house, the dad (played by Peter Graves) hides a wad of money and tells his kids, John and Pearl, to never reveal its location.
          However, while in jail, he meets a man named Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum). When Powell, who calls himself Preacher, gets wind of the missing money, he becomes obsessed with relieving John, Pearl, and their beautiful mother (Shelley Winters) of the $10,000 in loot.
          To achieve this end, Powell carries a switchblade which he calls a "sword" and has conversations with the Lord about smiting widows in Holy Battle.
          Night of the Hunter (1955), directed by one of film's greatest actors, Charles Laughton, is a gem of a picture concerning sex, money, religion, and murder all in one.
          As Harry Powell, Robert Mitchum is perfectly cast. When asked what religion he claims to preach, Powell growls, "The religion the Almighty and me worked out betwixt us!"
          It's the movie where Mitchum sports tattoos on his knuckles proclaiming LOVE and HATE. An "inwardly ravening wolf," Powell's not just out for money, he's legitimately nuts at all times. He hates women, and reminds God during their one-sided chats how God hates "perfume-smellin' things," too.
          Another character spends a deal of time talking to God and she's played by Lillian Gish, one of film's first stars, famous among other things for her role in D.W. Griffith's Way Down East (1920).
          The attractive widow of the bank robber, excellently played by Shelley Winters, bends God's ear in her own way, praying for "cleanliness" in the eyes of a supposed preacher who's killed around a dozen widows.
          Many of the shots that are intended to be outdoors clearly aren't. For whatever reason--probably greater filmmaking control--several scenes require indoor studio setup prevalent in cinema. Doesn't help the general look to suddenly see fake river. But there it is.
          As a film about repression released in particularly repressive times, it (or rather Laughton) gets away with a lot. The matronly Mrs. Spoon waxes philosophic at a church picnic on the subject of women wanting sex and concludes that sort of fiddle-faddle is "just a pipedream" and maintains that in all those years with Mr. Spoon she just thinks about her canning.
          Speaking of pipes, Mitchum liked smoking his. Got arrested for marijuana possession in 1948, and on the strength of that became extra-famous as Hollywood's sleepy-eyed, badass stoner. Less well-known: The screenplay for Thunder Road (1958), in which Mitchum starred, was based on a story he himself wrote about a Korean War vet's attempts to make moonshine.
          Stanley Kubrick seems to have been inspired by the film. Comparisons between Jack Torrance and Harry Powell abound. Look for Mitchum also as a great bad guy chasing around Gregory Peck and family in the 1962 film Cape Fear.


THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER
Starring Robert Mitchum,
Shelley Winters,
Lillian Gish,
James Gleason,
Evelyn Varden,
Billy Chapin,
Sally Jane Bruce,
Peter Graves
Directed by Charles Laughton
Written by James Agee
Based on the novel by Davis Grubb
Runtime 92 minutes


Stewart Kirby writes for
THE INDEPENDENT
and
TWO RIVERS TRIBUNE