Be yourself; Everyone else is already taken. — Oscar Wilde.
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Mean Streets 9/10
R, 112m, 1973
Starring: Harvey Keitel (Charlie Cappa), Robert De Niro (John “Johnny Boy” Civello), Amy Robinson (Teresa Ronchelli), Cesare Danova (Giovanni Cappa), David Proval (Tony DeVienazo), Richard Romanus (Michael Longo), George Memmoli (Joey) and Martin Scorsese (Jimmy Shorts). Directed by Martin Scorsese. Produced by Jonathan T. Taplin. Screenplay by Martin Scorsese and Mardik Martin.
As a film student at NYU, Scorsese intended to create an Italian American trilogy. The first was an aborted film that would have been called Jerusalem, Jerusalem. The second film would eventually become Who’s That Knocking at My Door? and the third film, which acts as a pseudo follow-up, to Who’s That Knocking at My Door?, is Mean Streets, originally called Season of the Witch. Both produced films were highly autobiographical with protagonists JR and Charlie as stand-ins for Scorsese. However, the idea was shelved, and Scorsese focused on directing Boxcar Bertha. Following a showing of Boxcar Bertha, director John Cassavetes advised Scorsese to direct something he wanted to do. Inspired by this constructive criticism, Scorsese revisited the Season of the Witch script, renaming it to Mean Streets, referencing Raymond Chandler’s essay “The Simple Art of Murder”.
Mean Streets opens where Who’s That Knocking at My Door? leaves off, with a wayward main character; played by Harvey Keitel, seeking guidance in a church. Charlie summarizes where JR went wrong with the opening dialogue, “You don’t make up for your sins in the church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit, and you know it”. As a small-time loan collector for his uncle Giovanni’s (Cesare Danova) loan shark operation, Charlie’s sins are far graver than JR’s. Charlie’s spiritual morality often conflicts with his desire to serve his mafia boss uncle. The film follows the lives of Charlie and his three friends, Michael (Richard Romanus), Tony (David Proval), and Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro,) in Little Italy. Of his friends, Johnny Boy, with his zany self-destructive, devil-may-care attitude, gives Charlie the most trouble. The four friends roam the streets of Little Italy, often frequenting the movie theater and a restaurant owned by Giovanni, which Charlie wants to run someday. However, Johnny Boy’s increasingly erratic behavior, as well as a secret affair with Johnny Boy’s cousin, Teresa (Amy Robinson), threatens to undermine Charlie’s ambitions and respect in the neighborhood. As tensions rise between a debt owed between Michael and Johnny Boy, as well as being pressured by Giovanni, Charlie must choose where his loyalties truly lie.
As a child living in Little Italy, Scorsese had to be taught the rules of the street to survive. One of these rules is the so-called boundaries of the block, which had the effect of leaving many who lived there in a state of psychic entrapment. So powerful was this mentality that save for one time when he went to a friend’s birthday party, a young Scorsese never ventured to the Greenwich Village, just a few streets away from his childhood home, until he was a student at NYU in the early 1960s. This is reflected in the film with the mob’s territory. Although the mob rules by night, they are confined to their domain, which often feels subterranean and claustrophobic. Although Charlie and his friends may act like Little Italy is their kingdom, it is also their mental prison. This is visually represented as a sinister and claustrophobic noir-esque enclosure. By utilizing noir-esque aesthetics with dimly lit narrow hallways, shadowy alleys, and dreary dwellings, Scorsese was able to visually represent the suffocating claustrophobia that threatens to choke the life out of its inhabitants. This gloomy den is ruled by the laws of the crime lords, so when Charlie continues to see Teresa, despite Giovanni forbidding him from seeing her, Charlie is breaking the rules of this world and is susceptible to punishment.
Despite acting as a pseudo later day St. Francis of Assai for those around him, Charlie is forced to serve the mob even as he fears divine retribution for his sins. To atone for his many sins, Charlie holds his hand to an open flame, which symbolically invokes hellfire and damnation. Despite this being a recurring motif throughout the film, Charlie seems to fear the loss of his uncle’s approval over the vengeful wrath of God. These opposing ideologies cause an internal conflict in his Christian consciousness. As a result, Charlie is riddled with guilt, as he lacks the maliciousness to become a true gangster, while also lacking the strength to live a holy life. Charlie’s Catholic beliefs intensify his moral conflicts, fueling the film’s overall sense of looming destiny. This sense of foreboding destiny is expressed visually through film noir techniques of dark alleyways and slick reflective streets. According to Scorsese, Charlie cannot ultimately reconcile his religious beliefs with the society he finds himself in. In the end, Charlie’s desire to be a saint while still appeasing Giovanni ultimately seals the fate of Charlie, Johnny Boy, and Teresa. By putting off his responsibilities to his friends until things reach a boiling point, Charlie ends up not only damning his friends but himself as well. While trying to appease everyone, Charlie is liked, but he does little to defuse the escalating situation between Johnny Boy and Giovanni. The opening scene showcases Charlie in the way he wishes to be seen. The scene is shot using a handheld 8mm camera, giving the scene a cinéma vérité, documentary realism aesthetic. Charlie is seen posing and beaming with the neighborhood’s inhabitants, appearing as everyone’s friend in a friendly neighborhood. The scene is set to the rhythm of The Ronette’s “Be My Baby”, which encapsulates Charlie’s desire to be accepted and respected by those around him. This charade is best summed up by Johnny Boy in a later scene, “Everybody loves Charlie. Charlie loves everybody. Fucking politician.”. Similarly to JR, Charlie is meant to be an autobiographical stand-in for Scorsese. In this sense, they are Scorsese’s Antoine Doinel, a character that serves as an autobiographical stand-in for François Truffaut, who appears in four films and one short. The relationship between Charlie and Teresa is similar to JR and the Girl’s in Who’s That Knocking at My Door? After a tender moment between the two, Teresa asks Charlie why he never tells her he loves her. He replies, “With you, I can’t get involved. You’re a cunt.”. When she rightfully reacts in hurt and anger, Charle tries to soothe her by claiming he was joking. “The Shoop Shoop Song” by Merry Clayton, which plays as Charlie gets dressed in his apartment reflects Teresa’s concern about Charlie’s conflict about his love for her, and his desire to appease his uncle. She gets her answer in the next scene, much to her chagrin. Regarding sex and love, JR and Charlie are essentially the same, with the Madonna-whore dichotomy remaining. Throughout the movie, she is the only one who wants to leave, which earns her the scorn of Giovanni, who sees her as sick in the head and disrespectful for wanting to leave her parents’ house. Her epileptic condition, which echoes Scorsese’s asthma, marks her as an outsider in the community. Although Charlie claims to care about her, like with all the relationships in his life, Charlie fails to connect with her. In a scene following a heated argument with Johnny Boy, Teresa suffers from a seizure and falls to the floor. Charlie briefly checks on her before leaving her to the care of an elderly neighbor, played by Catherine Scorsese. Unfortunately, Teresa is by far the least developed character, only making a major appearance towards the end of the film I get that this was to show the masculine-dominated society of Little Italy, but overall, Teresa ends up just being a wasted character potential. However, Teresa is not without her deeply problematic faults. In one scene, she walks up to a black maid, who is clearly busy, and tells her to make sure she cleans her room. The maid replies that she only has two hands. Teresa rudely retorts, “Then use them.”. The true star of the film is Johnny Boy, whose gleeful, explosive, self-destructive nature is best exemplified in his introduction, where he blows up a mailbox with jubilant reckless abandonment. His anachronistic spirit is a perfect foil to Charlie’s more amiable nature. His introduction showcases his destructive nature, which results in him exploding into violent fights, as well as his carelessness regarding his mounting debts. Johnny Boy’s second introductory scene is in the bar, showcasing his wild and reckless nature. Despite owing Michael money, Johnny Boy confidently struts into the bar with a girl on each arm, as Charlie looks on with a look of concern. The bar is bathed in a reddish hue, that invokes hellish imagery, visually associating the bar as a den of sin and debauchery. Johnny Boy’s entrance to the bar is set to the song “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” by The Rolling Stones. This serves as an excellent use of music to further introduce a character with lyrics such as “I was born in a crossfire hurricane.” denoting Johnny Boy’s destructive nature. His relationship with Charlie is based on the relationship between Scorsese’s father, Charlie, and Charlie’s brother, Joe, who the latter would often get in trouble and had to be bailed out by Charlie. Johnny Boy’s flakiness with his debts put not only his life in danger but also Charlie’s reputation. Charlie’s relationship with Johnny Boy and Teresa also puts him at odds with Giovanni; who values normal behavior. Johnny Boy’s flakiness with his debts is not the only character flaw that annoys Giovanni, it’s also Johnny Boy’s senseless acts of violence. Although retribution through violence is a feared consequence of crossing the mob, violence is only ever used as a last resort for the mob. Unnecessary violence calls attention to itself, thus making Charlie’s association with Johnny Boy a liability. In addition to his acts of violence, Johnny Boy’s mouth also creates problems for Charlie. Following a skirmish at Fat Joey’s pool room, Johnny Boy calls Joey a “scumbag,” resulting in another senseless altercation. Johnny Boy’s tendency to say the wrong thing to the wrong person has much more dire consequences when he arrives hours late for a meeting with Michael to repay some of his debts with money given to him by Charlie. Johnny Boy only gives Michael ten dollars and tells him that he’s the one stupid enough to loan him money. He caps this off by calling Michael a “fuckin jerk-off” before wielding an unloaded gun at Michael. As Michael storms away, swearing revenge, Johnny Boy turns to Charlie and says, “You got what you wanted.” believing that Charlie will be happy to wash his hands of him. What Johnny Boy doesn’t count on is Charlie’s self-sacrificial nature. In this sense, Johnny Boy is the cross that Charlie must bear. Charlie’s and Johnny Boy’s relationship also harkens back to the comedic witticism of duos such as Abbott and Costello and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their Road to series, with one of the characters trying to pull a fast one on the other guy. Their comedic banter is often improvised dialogue that is shot in a series of simple shot/reverse shots, over-the-shoulder continuity, with an occasional two-shot of the duo. The improvisational spontaneity of the film, popularized by Godard and in American cinema by Cassavetes, Altman, and later Scorsese, lends the film a certain level of realism that showcases the raw talent of the actors.
Stylistically. Mean Streets utilizes the handheld camera work of cinéma verité to heighten the emotion of a scene. The fight scene in the pool hall showcases a budding Scorsese cinematic style that features intense scenes that burst with a sudden and fierce energy found in later Scorsese films such as Taxi Driver, Goodfellas, and Casino. In the scene, the camera weaves and dives throughout the scene with hyper-kinetic energy, creating the illusion that the audience is in the thick of the conflict. Although the scene is not particularly violent, the way it’s shot and framed feels authentic. The fight choreography is rough and all over the place, and the camera movements are nervous and sporadic, jumping and darting all over the place. All set to the diegetic song “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes. The fighting is amateurish, with nobody knowing quite how to fight. In this sense, it feels like a genuine bar fight, instead of an over-choreographed fight scene that utilizes quick flashy editing to hide the lazy fight choreography. In another scene that takes place in a bar, the camera seems to tilt and sway with the intoxicated crowd, and when violence suddenly breaks out the camerawork becomes disorientating, visually representing the shock and confusion of being in the bar when violence unexpectedly erupts. Mean Streets was released during the cynical transition from the idealism to the sixties to the gritter and more pessimistic seventies. This cynicism stemmed from the disillusionment many Americans felt after being lied to during the Watergate scandal and the ongoing quagmire of the Vietnam War. This anti-authoritarian and aimlessness first started making waves in American cinema in the late 1960s with the release of films such as The Graduate, Easy Rider, Bonnie and Clyde, and Targets. By the time Mean Streets came out in 1963, crime films were dominating the screen with The Sting, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Badlands, Magnum Force, Dillinger, and Serpico to name a few. As a crime/mob film, Mean Streets takes the most inspiration from the gangster films of the 1930s and 40s, such as White Heat, Scarface, and the Warner Bros gangster films, combined with the more stylized violence of New Hollywood films like Bonnie and Clyde,and The Godfather, with the climatic conclusion echoing the ending of Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the aforementioned Bonnie and Clyde. However, Mean Streets does not follow the typical rise-and-fall narrative prevalent in most gangster films. Nor does it try to imitate the upper echelons of mob life like in The Godfather, which was released a year prior. Instead, Mean Streets goes for a grittier look at mob life on the street level. The plot of Mean Streets is intentionally kept simplistic. The film does not try to tell a complicated sweeping narrative like The Godfather films, The Public Enemy, or Little Caesar. The plot is engaging and essential, to be sure. Still, the true focus of the film is the world-building of capturing a certain time and place, in this case, Little Italy in the 60s and 70s, that was quickly disappearing, as well as a character study of individuals who are pushed to the edge living in a tinder box that is about to erupt in violence. However, simply classifying Mean Streets is missing what Scorsese was trying to say when making this film. In this sense, Mean Streets has more in common with Fellini’s I Vitelloni than most gangster films. Both films are the director’s third film that is semi-autobiographical and feature young men who have goals and ambitions that are hindered by their juvenile behavior, with one of the main characters being a stand-ins for the director. In I Vitelloni, Moraldo is a stand-in for Fellini, and in Mean Streets, Charlie is a stand-in for Scorsese. The group of friends are introduced by narration or by text. In I Vitelloni, the characters are introduced through brief introductions. In Mean Streets, the characters are introduced in scenes that encapsulate their characteristics. Tony is introduced in his bar throwing out someone, and Michael is introduced realizing that he has been swindled in a botched deal. Johnny Boy recklessly blows up a mailbox with a cherry bomb, and Charlie is first seen seeking penance in a church. In his essay for Harper’s entitled “Il Maestro,” as well as in his 1999 documentary My Voyage to Italy, Scorsese discusses the influences he took from Fellini when making Mean Streets. Both films also end with the message that at some point, childhood friends need to grow up and accept responsibility, and in some cases, need to drift apart from one another. Mean Streets also takes inspiration from the films of the French New Wave, particularly Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless. This is most notable in the bedroom scene with Charlie and Teresa, which echoes the exchange between Michel and Patricia. Both scenes feature young lovers in a tender bedroom setting, whose relationship is doomed to end in tragedy. In both films, there is a moment where one of the lovers peers at their partner through a means of obscuring the optical perception. In Breathless, Patricia looks at Michel through a rolled-up poster, and in Mean Streets, Charlie peeks at Teresa through his fingers.
Although Mean Streets is the third feature film that Scorsese directed, it’s in this film that Scorsese finally found his voice and style. Who’s That Knocking at My Door? and Boxcar Bertha have their merits, but it’s with Mean Streets that audiences saw what Scorsese could do. Mean Streets came out during a time of rejuvenation in American cinema. In an era of great directors such as Brian de Palma, Mike Nichols, Sam Peckinpah, Arthur Penn, and John Cassavetes, Scorsese was finally able to cement himself as a truly great American auteur. In a year that saw the release of great films such as Truffaut’s Day for Night, Friedkin’s The Exorcist, Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon, Hill’s The Sting, Malick’s Badlands, and Lucas’s American Graffiti, Mean Streets stands out as one of the best films of 1973, as well as one of Scorsese’s best films.
Boxcar Bertha 5/10
R, 87m, 1972
Starring: Barbara Hershey (Boxcar Bertha), David Carradine (Big Bill Shelly), Barry Primus (Rake Brown), Bernie Casey (Von Morton), Harry Northup (Deputy Sheriff Harvey Hall), and John Carradine (Sartoris). Directed by Martin Scorsese. Produced by Roger Corman. Screenplay by Joyce H. Corrington and John William Corrington. Music by Gib Guilbeau and Thad Maxwell. Based on Sister of the Road by Ben L. Reitman.
Many young filmmakers start their careers in film with the idea that they will make their first film, and it’s all smooth sailing from there. This is far from the truth, as the majority of filmmakers have to make a film that they’re not passionate about to stay relevant or to pay the bills. This was the case when Scorsese was hired by the legendary exploitation director/producer Roger Corman, who had given many young directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, and James Cameron their first or second directing job. Corman is perhaps best known for creating a library of exploration films during the 1950s and 60s. These films greatly range in quality from being good such as A Bucket of Blood, Pit and the Pendulum, The Masque of the Red Death, and The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, to being terrible such as Teenage Cave Man, Swamp Women, The Wasp Woman, and The She Gods of Shark Reef. In 1970, Corman released Bloody Mama, which was a minor hit at the box office and is one of Corman’s favorite films he made. The film stars Shelley Winters as Ma Baker, who organizes her four adult sons into a crime syndicate, set during the Great Depression, in the southern United States. The film also features a young Robert De Niro, in one of his early film roles. Following up on the success of Bloody Mama, Corman set out to make another female-led crime. His wife Julie found the perfect story in the form of the book “Sister of the Road: The Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha” by Ben Reitman. The book features heavy themes of sex and violence, making it perfect for Corman’s edgier tastes, only this time Corman would serve as producer, instead of as the director. Corman found his director in the form of Martin Scorsese, after seeing the grittiness of Who’s That Knocking at My Door?. Scorsese was hungry for another directing job, having not directed a film since Who’s That Knocking at My Door?. Scorsese had still been actively working in some capacity, working on films such as Woodstock, Medicine Ball Caravan, Minnie and Moskowitz, Street Scenes 1970, and Bezeten, Het Gat in de Muur. The film stands as an outlier in Scorsese’s oeuvre, while still retaining glimmers of elements that would later define Scorsese’s future work.
Boxcar Bertha follows the typical rise-and-fall structure that is commonplace in the gangster genre. The film opens with Bertha’s father dying in a crop-dusting plane crash. Now orphaned, Bertha (Barbara Hershey) is forced to scrounge a living by riding the rails as the Great Depression begins. A few years pass, and she meets Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine), a railroad union organizer. The two fall in love and are joined by gambler Rake Brown (Barry Primus) and the harmonica-playing Von Morton (Bernie Casey). The quartet soon start robbing trains and banks, gaining them notoriety, and they soon become the target of railway boss H. Buckram Sartoris (John Carradine) and Deputy Sheriff Harvey Hall (Harry Northup). The rest of the film shows the cat-and-mouse game between the Shelly Gang and Sartoris and Hall, culminating in a conclusion that exemplifies how bloody, a Roger Corman-produced film can be.
This film is without a doubt a Roger Corman production. Sex, violence, and counterculture politics dominate the picture. That being said, this is a fun picture, that shows the earnestness and future potential of a young Scorsese. One of the hallmarks of most Scorsese films is the well-crafted hyper-violent scenes. As an exploitation film, the death scenes in Boxcar Bertha do not disappoint. Scorsese rewrote the entire script to give each character a unique death scene. At the film’s start, the violence is first shown to be like the main characters and is depicted as rather juvenile. It’s as if the main characters are playing a childlike game, oblivious to any real danger until it catches up to them in typical Scorsese style. The first murder of the film just sort of happens, very similar to the first murder in Bonnie and Clyde, it’s quick, surprising, and violent. As the film progresses the film progresses, the characters soon learn that the game that they are playing is stacked against them and they’re helpless in preventing the inevitable sanguinary conclusion to the game of life and death. Watching the film, one gets the impression that Scorsese took what he liked from Bonnie and Clyde and applied it to Boxcar Bertha, while still giving the film its own identity without coming across as a rip-off. The action flows quickly and mostly effectively throughout the film. The film also features Scorsese’s first martyrdom, in a sequence that sets the standard for future martyrdom scenes later in Scorsese’s career.
Bonnie and Clyde, Boxcar Bertha, and Bloody Mama all utilize similar techniques to get their messages across. All three films are set in the Depression-era southern United States, to reflect the turbulent social unrest of the 1930s. The protagonists are gritty, anti-heroes, whose values clash with traditional norms. The establishments are corrupt, grim foils to the free-spirited protagonist, who are continuously chased down by the establishment until it ultimately culminates in a bloody confrontation. Regarding quality, Boxcar Bertha falls into the middle of Bonnie and Clyde and Bloody Mama. Boxcar Bertha has more compelling characters and the politics of the film line up far better than in Bloody Mama. In Bloody Mama, the characters are psychopathic and lack the charisma of the characters in Boxcar Bertha, especially those in Bonnie and Clyde, whose Barrow Gang possesses a Robin Hood-esque charisma. In Boxcar Bertha, Bertha and her gang fight against the rich, represented by the railroad barons, chiefly by Sartoris, the railroad boss. The opening scene depicts Bertha’s father dying in a plane crash due to the negligence of his greedy boss, who places profits over the lives of his employees, despite receiving ample warning from the plane’s mechanic that the engine was faulty. This callous act orphans Bertha, who is now thrown at the mercy of the Great Depression, where Bertha finds herself among the ranks of the poor and downtrodden. Despite lacking the charm and charisma of the Barrow Gang, Bertha’s gang motives are completely understandable, making them far more compelling than the Ma Baker Gang in Bloody Mama. What makes Bertha’s gang unique is in addition to helping out those in need, they also actively work to help the workers unionize. Big Bill’s journey from a railroad worker to a criminal is a critical aspect of the film. The character’s transformation exemplifies the moral ambiguities and complexities involved in the fight for workers’ rights and social change. The clashing ideology between Bill and Sartoris could have easily been your standard rich vs poor or young vs old oppugnancy. What makes the enmity between Bill and Sartoris truly work is in the casting. Sartoris is played by John Carradine, and his son David plays Bill. As Sartoris, the elder Carradine, with oily slicked back hair, well-groomed mustache, and oily voice serves as opposing fodder to David’s scruffy appearance and blunt delivery.
The main heroine played by Hershey, as a delightfully twisted individual, with a playful sweet innocent exterior, results in a surprisingly genuine performance. Bertha could have easily been portrayed as a bloodthirsty maniac; hell bent on revenge on the barons to avenge the loss of her father. Instead, she is shown to have a softer and gentler side that yearns for a real human connection, which life seems to deny her consistently. The contrast between the ruthless killer, and the spirited young woman brings to mind Faye Dunaway’s performance as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde, and Hershey’s performance leaves little doubt that Bertha could run a crime spree, and it makes it one of the most enjoyable aspects of the film if you take it for what it is. Bertha’s quick transition is a prime example of the film’s inconsistent character motivation. Bertha’s first sexual interaction is an act of rape by Bill, who leaves Bertha some money in her shoe as she sleeps. Later in the film she is referred to as a woman of the streets in the newspaper, and she reacts to the article with dismay. Bertha later accepts an offer from Mrs. Mailler (Marianne Doyle) to “clean up and get some rest”, only to learn that she has been taken to a brothel. At first, Bertha is shocked at this, revelation, but rather quickly accepts her situation. As a Roger Corman exploitation film, abundant sex and nudity is a given, but the progression from virgin to whore feels so forced and unmotivated in the context of Bertha’s character. Sure, Bertha exhibits wistful behavior in the brothel, but that’s implied to be more about her missing Bill, instead of her situation. Like Bonnie and Clyde, the transition from young lovers to wanted fugitives happens rapidly. However, unlike in Bonnie and Clyde, the relationship between Bill and Bertha is not fun. During their first meeting, Bill forces himself on her, and the film unfortunately relies on a disgusting cliché, and Bertha soon begins to enjoy her assault. Their relationship doesn’t improve from there, so by the end of the film the audience doesn’t feel sorry that the relationship ended, rather they feel bad that Bertha finds herself in the same situation she was at the beginning of the film. The lack of chemistry between Bill and Bertha is not the fault of the leads, as Carradine and Hershey were lovers at the time. Had they been given a better script; their relationship could have been one of the stronger parts of the film. That being said, their relationship could have been a lot worse. It could have easily been a stale, banal, bonk fest. When production began, the only instruction Scorsese was given by Corman was that there had to be a nudity scene approximately every fifteen pages, which Scorse did manage to do without making the nudity scenes appear routine or shoehorned in like they did in Who’s That Knocking at My Door?.
As expected of a Scorsese film, religious symbolism and themes are found throughout the film. The most notable example is the characters of Big Bill and Bertha, who are meant to represent Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Like her biblical counterpart, Bertha is a sometimes prostitute who seeks redemption in one man. In Bertha’s case, she seeks political and possibly spiritual salvation in Bill. This symbolic identity is visually represented in a black fundamentalist church, where the Shelly Gang has taken refuge. In a lingering shot, a Muriel on the back wall depicts a woman gazing devotedly at a figure dressed in white robes. The film’s conclusion further solidifies the grisly connection between Bill and Jesus in a sequence that Scorsese would repeat in The Last Temptation of Christ. The religious evocation was not lost on the two leads and Hershey even gave Scorsese a copy of Nikos Kazantzakis’s 1955 novel, The Last Temptation of Christ. Hershey would later be cast as Mary Magdalene when Scorse adapted the novel in 1988. Of Scorsese’s oeuvre, I would say that Boxcar Bertha has the weakest religious symbolism. Save for the ending, the Jesus/Bill Magdalene/Bertha connection feels tenuous at best.
Like most of Scorsese’s films, Boxcar Bertha has numerous references and callbacks to other films, most notably The Wizard of Oz. This ranges from lines such as “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain”, to the quartet main characters. The three male characters (Carradine, Primus, and Casey) even parallel the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Man. Both the Scarecrow and Bill use their intelligence and charisma to organize and come up with a clever strategy to fight against their opponents. Van Morton represents the Tin Man, as the most caring in the group Also like the Tin Man, his strong sense of compassion and justice serves as the group’s moral anchor, representing his metaphorical heart. Like the Cowardly Lion, Rake is first depicted as someone who becomes frightened easily. However, as their respective films progress, both characters exhibit a strong sense of loyalty and courage when it matters most. Even Hershey’s hair is styled into Dorthey-like Pigtails. Another film that Boxcar Bertha borrows from is Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre sa vie, with some scenes being almost shot-for-shot recreations. This is most notable in the improvised interview in the brothel, the old man eating glass, the gag with the doors, and the fantasy mood that permeates throughout the film. Both films feature young women who are forced to resort to prostitution to survive while commenting on social and economic injustices that force the characters into extreme situations.
Following a showing of Boxcar Bertha, director John Cassavetes turned to Scorsese and said, “Marty, you’ve spent a year of your life making a piece of shit”. While I understand where Cassavetes was coming from, I feel that calling this film a piece of shit is a bit harsh. Are there large parts of this film that don’t work? Yes. Does this film feel cheap and rushed? Yes. Is this Scorsese’s worst film? Most definitely. But simply relegating this film as shit is a bit far. Compared to Scorsese’s amazing body of work, it’s easy to discount this film and slam it as trash or cheap, but I feel that’s an unfair judgment. Every director or studio is bound to create one film that’s their worst. Take Pixar for instance, it’s easy to take a film like The Good Dinosaur or Cars 2 and blast them with negativity because they don’t meet the level of quality that has become expected from said studio or director. Even writers such as myself are not immune to fallacies. One of the harshest criticisms said about one of my reviews was regarding my Pocahontas review, where it was described as “good, but it lacks the Nick level of quality that I’ve come to expect”. I took this criticism as a chance to learn and improve, and Scorsese did the same regarding the reception of Boxcar Bertha. He took what he learned from his experiences of working on a Roger Corman exploitation film and applied them to his next picture Mean Streets.
King Kong 7.5/10
PG-13, 187m, 2005
Starring Naomi Watts (Ann Darrow), Jack Black (Carl Denham), Adrien Brody (Jack Driscoll), Thomas Kretschmann (Captain Englehorn), Colin Hanks (Preston), Jamie Bell (Jimmy) Fred Tatasciore (Kong Voice) and Andy Serkis (Kong and Lumpy). Directed by Peter Jackson. Produced by Jan Blenkin, Carolynne Cunningham, Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson. Screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson. Music by James Newton Howard. Based on King Kong by James Creelman, Ruth Rose, Edgar Wallace and Merian C. Cooper.
One of the hardest things for an artist to ask themselves after creating something that received both critical and financial success is “Ok, now what?” Prior to the release of the enormously successful Lord of the Rings franchise, director Peter Jackson was largely unknown in the Hollywood scene, with only a few of his films receiving much attention. King Kong is the first film directed by Peter Jackson, following the completion of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. This put a tremendous amount of pressure on Peter Jackson to create a film that could rival his most recent films as well as the original King Kong.
The film follows the same basic story as the original King Kong. Following a chance meeting, aspiring actress Ann Darrow (Naomi Watts) is hired by the financially struggling filmmaker Carl Denham (Jack Black), who plans on making an adventure film halfway across the world. Playwright Jack Driscoll (Adrien Brody) is convinced by Denham to be the screenwriter for the proposed film and the crew set sail aboard the SS Venture. The ship’s captain, Captain Englehorn (Thomas Kretschmann), is initially led to believe that the ship is heading to Singapore, but Denham has ulterior motives. Denham secretly schemes to get the ship to head to Skull Island, which has an aura of mystique and danger surrounding it. The crew makes it to Skull Island, where Ann is soon captured by the locals, who try to sacrifice Ann to their god Kong. Instead of immediately devouring her, Kong takes an interest in Ann, and the two develop an unlikely kinship. Meanwhile, Carl, Jack, and the rest of the crew desperately scour the jungle trying to rescue Ann from Kong. After several mishaps, which results in the deaths of several crewmembers, they find Kong’s lair. While trying to escape with Ann, Jack accidentally wakes up Kong, who immediately gives chase. Kong is eventually captured and is shipped to New York City, where he becomes a massive attraction on Broadway. Kong escapes, and the rest of the film follows Kon’s rampage through New York City, culminating in the climactic battle atop the Empire State Building
The original King Kong was released in the middle of the Great Depression, a time in which many people used cinema as a form of escapism in an effort to try and forget about their troubles, if only for a short amount of time. Peter Jackson’s King Kong is wisely set in the same year the original film was released. In the opening shots, the audience sees the glamor of show biz and the pageantry of the rich and famous, juxtaposed with the disparity of people experiencing the harsh reality of the Great Depression.
This film simultaneously fixes some problems that previous Kong iterations had, while making other problems more glaringly obvious. The first and most important problem this film fixes is the relationship between Kong and Ann. In previous iterations, the relationship between the two was a bit awkward and there was an obvious sexual undertone involved. This film fixes this by making their relationship more platonic, and by having Ann care about Kong. In the 1933 version of King Kong, Ann couldn’t be bothered by what happens to Kong, probably because she spends the entire film getting harassed by Kong. In this film, Kong and Ann have several scenes together where they just enjoy each other’s company. There’s a scene in Central Park during the winter, in which Kong and Ann just ice skate and frolic around in the wintery scenery. While this has no real bearing on the plot and contributes to the film’s Kong-sized run time, scenes like this add a more personalized touch. Another improvement to the film is the film’s world-building element. Jackson masterfully captures the drab feelings of the depression, mixed with American optimism. The place where Jackson’s worldbuilding truly shines is in the Skull Island sequences. While some of the effects look a bit dated by modern standards, many of these scenes showcase how truly terrifying the island can be. In one scene, one of the members of the rescue team, performed wonderfully by Andy Serkis, is grabbed by a giant worm creature and is hoisted in the air, where he’s slowly eaten by the creature. Scenes like this serve as a reminder of Jackson’s roots as a director of horror. Unfortunately, these action scenes can sometimes go on for too long and branch off into over-the-top and cartoonish territory. The one area in which I’d say this film handled very poorly, that other iterations handled better would be with the natives. I felt that the film made the native characters look far more sinister and less human than it should have. Even in the 1933 film, I felt that the native characters were human, who cared about their children, despite having some misguided notions, such as human sacrifices. With Peter Jackson’s King Kong, I felt that the design of the natives looked closer to a humanoid alien, rather than an actual human being. I don’t think that there was any malicious intent on the filmmakers’ part, but I still see this as a glaring flaw that should have never existed in the first place.
Utilizing CGI-created characters or effects is often a risky move. Sometimes the effects or character look good or even ground-breaking at the time of the film’s release, but as time goes on the aging of the film starts to show. This is most notable in the Brontosaurus and Venatosaurus chase scene. Even one of the visual centerpieces of the film, the fight between Kong and the three Vastatosauruses, looks a bit dated. This is partially the reason that I tend to favor seeing practical effects versus CGI effects. The image of King Kong is an iconic icon of cinema, and a badly rendered CGI Kong would have ruined this film. While the effects of this film are a hit or miss by today’s standards, it’s hard to be harsh to the visuals of this film. Andy Serkis’ motion capture and facial rendering for Kong is what gives the film a much-needed sense of pathos. Serkis’s performance as Kong makes it so that the audience has little trouble believing that Kong can reason like an intelligent being and possess feelings that are familiar to humans.
Like most great filmmakers, Jackson and his team spent hours doing their research in order to prepare for the creation of King Kong. The filmmakers spent hours studying the different behaviors of gorillas, in order to best capture the true essence of a living breathing gorilla. Andy Serkis, who performed the motion capture actions for Kong, spent hours at the London Zoo, interacting with gorillas in an effort to try and capture the raw power and sensitivity of a gorilla. Their hard work and research paid off because the film succeeds at convincing its audience that King Kong looks and acts like a real gorilla. I’d even go as far to say that this film did a better job at portraying the sensitive part of Kong that the original film attempted to do using stop-motion puppetry and models.
Ordinarily, I’m not too fond of remakes of popular films. I feel that if a film has a good story, interesting characters, and is generally well-received, I feel that a remake is unnecessary. I say this because oftentimes, films get remade, and the filmmakers fail to understand what made the original film so good in the first place. I was pleased to see that King Kong successfully captured the essence of the original film, but still retained its identity as its own thing. Peter Jackson has stated in multiple interviews, that one of his favorite films as a child was King Kong, and around the age of nine, he attempted to remake the film using his own stop-motion techniques. I can safely say that with this film, Peter Jackson has done justice to the legacy of King Kong.
Who’s That Knocking at My Door 6/10
R, 90m, 1967
Starring Harvey Keitel (J.R.), Zina Bethune (The Girl), Lennard Kuras (Joey), Ann Collette (Girl in Dream), Harry Northup (Harry), and Michael Scala (Sally). Directed by Martin Scorsese. Produced by Joseph Weill, Retzi Manoogian, and Haig Manoogian. Screenplay by Martin Scorsese.
Who’s That Knocking at My Door started as a student film, originally titled Bring on the Dancing Girls, while Scorsese was still a student at New York University. Scorsese, dissatisfied with much of the original footage, decided to reshoot the entire film, except for several scenes with Harvey Keitel. One of Scorsese’s professors, Haig Manoogian, saw promise in the young filmmaker. So, he helped finance the new production, now entitled I Call First, later entitled Who’s That Knocking at My Door.
The film centers around J.R. (Harvey Keitel), a young aimless Italian American, who enjoys goofing off with his friends while living in New York City. One day, while riding the Staten Island ferry, J.R. spies a girl (Zina Bethune) reading a French magazine. J.R. walks up to her and clumsy starts a conversation. They immediately hit it off, engaging in discussions, ranging from John Wayne to reading French, as well as their ambitions for the future. Despite being from two very different backgrounds, the two begin dating. However, the young couple’s drastically different lifestyles soon put their romance into question, and J.R. is forced to look inward, to try and save his relationship.
Who’s That Knocking at My Door was released during a period in film history known as the American New Wave or the New Hollywood movement. The movement roughly began in the late 1960s with the release of films such as The Graduate, Bonnie and Clyde, Easy Rider, and The Night of the Living Dead. This movement sparked new interests in American films and gave rise to new young filmmakers such as John Millus, Francis Ford Coppola, and of course Martin Scorsese. As a lifelong student of film, Scorsese was exposed to a wide variety of films, and the influence of these films, as well as Scorsese’s love for cinema, is clear in all his films. In Who’s That Knocking at My Door, some of the clearest influences are the cinematic styles and aesthetics of the French New Wave and the Italian Neorealism film movements. Italian Neorealism began towards the end of World War II. The movement is characterized by stories set amongst the poor and working class. They primarily address the economic turmoil and moral conditions of post-World War II Italy, representing changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life, including poverty, oppression, injustice, and desperation. Martin Scorsese has described Who’s That Knocking at My Door as the “first film to show what Italian-Americans were really like and that was what is good about it”. In that sense, Who’s That Knocking at My Door is more of an Italian-American Neorealism film, than the Italian Neorealism films of Michelangelo Antonioni, Roberto Rossellini, or Luchino Visconti.
The cinematography takes inspiration from the French New Wave, Italian Neorealism, and the Direct Cinema movement. The film was shot on location in an everyday setting, with natural lighting, and with a handheld camera. For the look of the film, Scorsese wanted to capture the everyday look of the neighborhood and portray the life he was living at the time. To some this style of cinematography may appear amateurish or rough. Still, I find the film’s stylistic influences complement the film’s story and tone and continue the tradition of incorporating documentary techniques for fictional narratives, which became prevalent in independent directors of the 1950s and 60s. Examples include Shirley Clarke, Morris Engel, Lionel Rogosin, and John Cassavetes, who is Scorsese’s primary influence on this style of filmmaking. The look of the film was also heavily inspired by Italian Neorealism cinematographers such as Gianni Di Venanzo and Giuseppe Rotunno. When filming Who’s That Knocking at My Door, Scorsese wanted to capture the pure beauty of bright southern Italy in black and white, and I feel that Scorsese and cinematographer Michael Wadleigh did an excellent job in capturing the stylings of Italian Neorealism.
The influence of the French New Wave is also notable throughout the film. As many of the directors of the French New Wave such as Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut, were relatively young when they made their first films, the early films of the French New Wave are often marked with a sense of a youthful, playful, exuberant or audacious feeling. The films of the French New Wave also frequently feature young characters in topical settings. The directors of the French New Wave largely wanted to show their generation’s ways of living and thinking and tackle issues that were not previously addressed in French Cinema. This is why so many films of this era have a naturalistic or documentary feeling about them. This style of filmmaking was encouraged at NYU during the 1960s, especially by Haig Manoogian, who was Martin Scorsese’s film professor. According to Manoogian, “Filmmaking should be personal, and one must film what one knows”. This is a lesson that Scorsese took to heart; one can see that in all his films. Scorsese was in his early 20s when he began production on Who’s That Knocking at My Door. Like the directors of the French New Wave, Scorsese’s primary goal in making Who’s That Knocking at My Door was to show life as he saw it in growing up in New York. Modern viewers of the film might find this film to be unremarkable, but at the time this film was unlike most of the other films that Hollywood was producing at the time.
While I respect and appreciate the stylistic influences the film takes from other film movements, these stylistic influences do lead to some moments that feel jarring or out of place. The film does overuse the freeze frame technique, to the point where it takes the audience out of the film. The film’s incessant cross-cutting to enclosures, such as doors slamming, windows closing, and locks sliding shut, visually represents J.R.’s closed-off mentality. If used sparingly, I think this could have worked. Unfortunately, the film overuses the technique to the point where it becomes routine and distracting. The film’s use of seemingly improvisational dialogue gives the film a documentary-esque feel to it, however, this also leads to the problem of overstating the dialogue, making it feel at times forced or overdrawn. While I liked the natural chemistry between J.R. and the Girl, I feel like some of the dialogue is trying to push the narrative along and throwing out character exposition instead of letting things play out organically. Scenes with J.R. and his friends tend to run too long, resulting in a series of repetitious dialogue that ultimately doesn’t lead to anything of consequence.
The character of J.R. is largely based on Scorsese’s own experience with Catholicism. In the film, J.R. is infatuated with his girlfriend, whom he wishes to marry someday. He rejects her offers of sex, believing that she is still a virgin, and he doesn’t want to be the one to “spoil her” before her wedding night. He becomes enraged when she confesses that she was raped a few years prior. He goes off on her and calls her a whore, before storming off. After a night of drinking and soul-searching, J.R. returns to her apartment where he claims that he forgives her and that he will still marry her anyway. The girl rejects him and tells him to go home. Instead, J.R. heads to the Catholic Church where he hopes to find some form of solace. The themes of Catholic guilt and its relation to sex permeate throughout the film. Catholic men of Scorsese’s generation were generally taught that sex was a mortal sin, as such a good Catholic boy should marry a virgin Catholic girl. In the film, J.R. has no qualms about sleeping with other girls or broads, as J.R. calls them, but not the girl he is dating. This stems from an old Catholic belief that women were either madonnas or whores. The madonna-whore dichotomy only complicates matters further by encouraging fear and distrust of women in impressionable young men. This results in a culture in which women don’t seem like real human beings. This is represented in the film as J.R. having spent the entirety of his life in a culture that preached outdated and problematic ideas and is left feeling completely lost when he meets a girl who has everything he desires in a woman.
One of the most misplaced scenes is not Scorsese’s fault. To get his film distributed, Scorsese had to shoot and inject some form of nude scene. This was to give the film an excuse to be marketed as a sexploitation film. To get around this demand, Scorsese added a fantasy sequence involving J.R. and some prostitutes. The scene adds nothing to the plot and could be cut without losing anything vital. That being said the scenes are well shot and well-acted.
Harvey Keitel as J.R. and Zini Bethrune as the girl, work splendidly together in this film. At first, they seem like your typical mismatched couple: a tough guy from the streets meets a college-educated, well-read girl and is instantly smitten with her. In lesser films, the girl would have served as J.R.’s salvation, bringing him out of the streets, and away from his tough guy friends to a world of tranquil suburban normality. Instead, we get a realistic portrayal of two different personalities colliding and trying to make it work. The chemistry between the two characters feels very natural and organic. They have real conversations about things that they are passionate about. J.R. talks at length about movies he’s passionate about and how he describes The Searchers, one can see the self-autobiographical relation to Scorsese. Despite only being known as the girl, there’s a deeply touching and passionate aspect to the relationship between J.R. and the girl. Their relationship is one of closeness and tenderness, often shown in extreme close-ups, it’s anything but explicit in a scene where the lovers are passionately caught in one another’s tender embrace. J.R. stops short of making love, saying “Not now”. The girl gently presses for an explanation, and he brushes her off with a reason that he’s old-fashioned, and if she truly loved him, then she’d understand.
The sequence in which the girl recounts her rape by her ex-boyfriend showcases Scorsese’s filmmaking ability to portray violent and despicable acts in a way that feels authentic, and not exploitative. As the girl recounts her story. The scene dissolves to show the act playing out. The scene begins in an almost cliched manner. A young couple is alone on a date when the Dubs’ “Don’t Ask Me to Be Lonely”, plays on the radio. This is where things go from sweet to horrific. The boyfriend goes beyond what the girl is comfortable with, and he becomes aggressive. As this assault occurs, the normally sweet do-op beat turns sinister. Mirroring the tense situation in the car, the song starts to distort, as the music slows and slurs, making what is already an uncomfortable scene, almost unbearable to watch. When J.R. dismisses her traumatic experience, the audience can’t help but feel a great swell of sympathy for this poor girl, who just told the person she thought she could trust a great personal and painful moment from her past, only to get rejected and insulted.
While Scorsese’s first picture is rough, his potential as a budding filmmaker is undeniable. Some may pass this film off as a typical student film, marred with mediocrity. I find this to be an unfair assessment. While I don’t consider this film great, it’s still better than many other films I’ve seen. Even though it’s his feature-length theatrical directorial debut, the film showcases many techniques and themes that would be further explored and improved in his later work. At worst, this film can be seen as a blueprint for future Scorsese pictures, most notably Mean Streets, Goodfellas, and Taxi Driver.
Batman 7.5/10
PG-13, 126m, 1989
Starring: Michael Keaton (Bruce Wayne/Batman), Jack Nicholson (Jack Napier/Joker), Kim Basinger (Vicki Vale), Michael Gough (Alfred Pennyworth), Pat Hingle (Commissioner Gordon), Robert Wuhl (Alexander Knox), Tracey Walter (Bob the Goon), Billy Dee Williams (Harvey Dent) and Jack Palance (Carl Grissom). Directed by Tim Burton. Produced by Peter Guber and John Peters. Screenplay by Sam Hamm and Warren Skaaren. Music by Danny Elfman. Based on the Batman characters created by Bob Kane.
Batman marks the second theatrical feature film starring the dark knight. The first was Batman: The Motion Picture, released in 1966 and based on the 1960s Batman television show. Following the critical and box office disappointments of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace, Howard the Duck, and Supergirl, superhero films faced an uncertain future. Superman and Superman II had been highly successful both critically and commercially, but since then superhero films had not been viewed as seriously viable commercial properties. A Batman film had been in the works for several years, but this version of the film would have been similar to the campy 1960s show in terms of style. In the mid to late 80s, Batman received a massive image change with the publication of darker and grittier graphic novels such as Alan Moore and Brian Bolland’s “The Killing Joke” in 1988 and Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Rises” in 1986. Initially hired following the success of Peewee’s Big Adventure, director Tim Burton was not a comic book fan, and after getting to know the character he decided he wanted to make a serious Batman film. The film was greenlit following the success of Beetlejuice, and Burton set to work to create a Batman film that had a darker and more serious tone.
The film opens with a scene that almost mirrors the birth of Batman. A couple (Garrick Hagon and Liza Ross) and their son (Adrian Meyers) are mugged at gunpoint by two goons (Christopher Fairbank and George Roth), who quickly make off with their stolen loot. Atop a rooftop, the two men discuss the recent appearance of a masked vigilante, known only as the Batman (Michael Keaton). Batman arrives and makes short work of the pair. As the police are carting away the pair, reporter Alexander Knox (Robert Wuhl) arrives on the scene in order to dig up any news on the mysterious Batman. Receiving none, Knox returns back to his office, where he finds photojournalist Vicki Vale (Kim Basinger), who has a keen interest in capturing Batman on film. The pair attend a fundraiser hosted by billionaire Bruce Wayne, who is secretly Batman. Meanwhile, mob boss Carl Grissom (Jack Palance) sends his second-in-command Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) to Axis Chemicals to destroy incriminating evidence. Unbeknownst to Napier, the task is a trap set up by Grissom, for retribution for Napier sleeping with Grissom’s wife, Alicia (Jerry Hall). During the raid at Axis Chemicals, Napier is accidentally knocked into a vat of acid, turning him into the pale-skinned, green-haired Joker. Joker kills Grissom and takes over as mob boss, where he quickly rises to the top of Gotham’s crime syndicate. To sow chaos Joker laces Gotham’s hygiene products with the drug “Smylex”, which causes the victim to literally die from laughter. Now it’s up to Batman to stop the Joker before he can turn the entire populace of Gotham into a mob of rictus grinned corpses.
One of the aspects I always look forward to in a Tim Burton film is the film’s aesthetic. Tim Burton got his start in animation working on films like The Fox and the Hound, The Black Cauldron, and Ralph Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings. His animation background helps give his film a visual flair in which the film’s aesthetic becomes a character of its own. Burton’s dark and gothic imagery gives the city of Gotham a unique look that compliments the film’s darker tone. The Gotham City of the Batman tv show looks like your run-of-the-mill city, which while it stays true to the show’s campiness, it fails to leave an indelible impact as a memorable location. Burton’s Gotham has an aesthetic that just oozes with great gothic imagery that harkens back to the films of the German Expressionism era such as Metropolis, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and M, as well as the films of the noir genre such as The Big Combo and The Third Man. The film’s general look was also inspired by Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, with its towering metropolitan look with intentionally clashing architectural styles that reflect the city’s criminal turmoil.
When the casting for this film was announced, many fans of the Batman comics felt that Michael Keaton was a poor choice to portray the caped crusader. This is largely because Keaton was known for more comedic and romantic roles, whereas the character of Batman called for a more stoic and serious performance. As Batman, Keaton is very intimidating, but I’m not a fan of this Batman’s fighting style. His fighting style generally lacks any real weight that one would expect from the Caped Crusader. Batman does not possess any superpowers, so to compensate for this he uses a combination of martial arts, brute strength, a keen intellect, and an awesome array of gadgets to take on more super-powered foes. There’s nothing adheringly awful about Keaton’s Batman fighting style, but it doesn’t quite match up to how I envision Batman in action. Maybe I’ve just been spoiled on the fight scenes of the Nolan trilogy, but I found the fighting scenes to be a little lackluster. That being said, Keaton does manage to pull off a convincing Batman performance. As the Dark Knight, Keaton possesses a certain physical prowess, that translates into a budding young superhero, who’s just starting to find his feet. As Bruce Wayne, Keaton can give a believable performance as a man, who grew up in immense wealth, but whose psychological torture led him to taking on the mantle of Batman. However, my problem with Bruce Wayne stems from the writing of the character. As the audience, we learn very little about the man behind the mask, and this makes it a bit difficult to root for him. One aspect that I’ve always admired Batman for is that he recognizes there’s only so much he can do as Batman. As Bruce Wayne, he can attempt to fix Gotham’s problems at the source. Throughout the film, Bruce Wayne does very little to help the city of Gotham, and as Batman, he does very little to bring any of the major criminals of Gotham to justice, save for the Joker, who actually does more to take out the major criminals of Gotham than Batman does. Kim Basinger as photojournalist Vicki Vale, does a decent job, but the romance between her and Bruce Wayne feels so awkward and forced. This romantic subplot actually leads to one of the clumsiest moments of the film. After dating, for a very short time, Vicki Vale is led down to the Batcave, by Bruce’s closest and most trusted ally, Alfred. As if this moment isn’t odd enough as is, neither Bruce nor Vicki Vale shows any real reaction to seeing each other in the Batcave. This should have been a huge revolution, but instead, the film just glosses over the moment, treating it like a moment of unimportance. At the very least Bruce should have had some choice words for Alfred’s careless neglect of Bruce’s secrecy. This scene could have worked had Bruce and Vicki been dating for years by the events of the film, and if Vicki had proven herself trustworthy, I’d have bought it, but as is, I’m a bit surprised that Bruce didn’t dismiss Alfred from Wayne Manor. The film’s standout performance clearly goes to Jack Nicholson as the Joker, who almost perfectly threads the needle of being a comedically threatening villain. However, Nicholson’s standout performance does serve as a bit of a determent to the film, as it completely overshadows Keaton’s performance as Batman. This is a problem many films fall prey to, and this may not bother some people, but to me, a protagonist needs to be just as interesting as the antagonist. I saw this because the relationship between Batman and Joker has always been interesting. With Joker, you have a guy who has a carnival mask of a clown that hides the horror that lurks beneath. On the other side of the coin, you’ve got Batman, who dresses as a nightmarish bat to inspire fear in his enemies. Joker represents the randomness of crime, which pairs perfectly with Batman, who lost his parents due to a random act of crime. In the comics, Joker never really had a real origin story until Alan Moore’s “The Killing Joke”. Like in the film, Joker falls into a vat of acid, after Batman accidentally knocks him over. I actually prefer the film’s depiction of Joker’s origin, because in “The Killing Joke”, the Joker was just a regular guy, who went crazy after the events of that day. In the film, Joker is a terrible person even before he fell into the acid. Falling into the acid just made his outward appearance reflect the monster that resides within.
While not the best superhero film, it can’t be denied how influential Batman was for superhero films as the films that followed Batman like Blade, X-Men, and even Spider-Man had a darker a gritter tone than the superhero films that came before Batman. Because of the success of Batman, superhero films were allowed to have brooding and more vulnerable characters, without camp or irony. In one film, director Tim Burton was able to separate the name Batman from the Adam West interpretation and helped lay the groundwork for the modern superhero film that we know today.
Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope 9/10
PG, 121m, 1977
Starring: Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker), Carrie Fisher (Leia Organa), Harrison Ford (Han Solo), Alec Guinness (Obi-Wan Kenobi), Peter Cushing (Grand Moff Tarkin), Anthony Daniels (C-3PO), Kenny Baker (R2-D2), Peter Mayhew), David Prowse (Darth Vader) and James Earl Jones (Darth Vader Voice). Directed by George Lucas. Produced by Gary Kurtz. Screenplay by George Lucas. Music by John Williams.
When I sat down to write this review, I knew it would be difficult. A New Hope was released in 1977, and it has been analyzed and reviewed by so many people, that writing a new review for the film seems almost superfluous. This raises the question of what could I possibly have to add or contribute to the conversation? The second problem I had with reviewing this film, is my love for the original Star Wars trilogy. How could I be subjective to a film that I adored growing up? As a kid, I read numerous Star Wars books that are now part of the Legends canon, and my friends and I used to reenact our favorite moments from the films on the playground (how we kept from actually hurting each other, I’ll never know). As I sat down to review this film, I noticed little things in the film that both added to and took away from my enjoyment of the film.
The film opens with an epic opening scroll, set to an epic operatic theme that provides the expository backdrop needed to understand what’s happening onscreen. After years of civil war, the Rebel Alliance successfully steals the plans for the Empire’s ultimate battle station, the dreaded Death Star, which can destroy entire planets. The film starts with an Imperial Star Destroyer capturing the ship that houses Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) and the Death Star plans. Also on the ship are the droids C-3PO (Anthony Daniels) and R2-D2 (Kenny Baker). While hiding from the Imperial forces, R2-D2 is given the Death Star plans from Princess Leia and is instructed to provide the plans to Obi-Wan Kenobi. Escaping on an escape pod, the two droids land on the desert planet of Tatooine, where they eventually meet Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). The three soon come into contact with an elderly man who goes by the name of Ben Kenobi (Alec Guinness). After hearing of the droids’ secret mission, Ben reveals himself as the very Obi-Wan Kenobi that the droids had been searching for. Obi-Wan then reveals to Luke that he and Luke’s father were once Jedi Knights, who used to serve as the guardians of the Grand Republic before the Empire came into power. The message inside Artoo is revealed to be a message of Leia begging Obi-Wan to join her father on the planet of Alderaan and assist the Rebellion in their fight against the Empire. Initially Luke was reluctant to go with Ob-Wan to Alderaan since he had an uncle and aunt who needed his help on their farm. However, upon returning home, Luke discovers the charred remains of his aunt and uncle, who were killed by a squad of Imperial stormtroopers. Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids quickly find a ship captain named Han Solo (Harrison Ford), who along with his first mate Chewbacca agrees to take the group to Alderaan, aboard the Millennium Falcon. Meanwhile, Princess Leia has been captured and is brought to Darth Vader for questioning. Annoyed at her lack of cooperation, Vader sends Leia away to be taken to the Death Star. She is forced to witness the destruction of her home planet, Alderaan. Now our heroes aboard the Millennium Falcon must rescue Princess Leia and help take the Death Star’s secret plans to the hidden Rebel base.
I think part of the reason the characters of Star Wars have become as enduring as they have is due to how familiar and unique these characters are. George Lucas drew heavily from the space serials and swashbucklers of his youth and other archetypical characters in classic literature and myth. Luke is the wide-eyed dreamer, who serves as the blank slate that the audience can live vicariously through and learn more about the characters’ universe. Mark Hamill encapsulates this role perfectly, his wholesome easy-going nature spills wonderfully into the character of Luke, which helps the audience identify and empathize with him throughout the film. Han Solo is the suave mercenary archetype whose heart is in the right place. Harrison Ford embodied this role perfectly, of the three youthful characters Harrison was the oldest and the only one to star in more than one feature before the release of this film. Leia Organa is a strong female character who adds a much-needed feminine touch but can also hold her own in a fight. Carrie Fisher does an excellent job portraying a character who is wise beyond her years and who can hold her own in a fight. My only real complaint against Leia in A New Hope isn’t because of the actress. In the film, her home planet of Alderaan is destroyed, and with the planet’s destruction, her entire family is also wiped out. Carrie Fisher wanted to emote more but was told to hold back. There was a deleted line following the destruction of Alderaan that I think would have benefited the film. The line uttered by Leia in which she says, “And you call yourselves human”. This is an excellent retort and through Carrie Fisher’s brilliant vocal experience, the audience got a sense of just how devastated Leia truly was following the destruction of her home planet. C-3PO and R2-D2 serve as comedic relief, heavily influenced by the two peasants in Akira Kurosawa’s Hidden Fortress. Obi-Wan Kenobi is the older mentor archetype that introduces the naïve, wide-eyed youth to the wider world. Of the four main human protagonists, Alec Guinness was the most experienced actor with credits from classic films such as Lawrence of Arabia, Bridge Over the River Kwai, and Doctor Zhivago. This experience translates masterfully to the screen as Alec Guinness projects a sense of grace and wisdom from a lifetime of study and dedication. Released in an age of cinema where antiheroes and grey-coded protagonists ruled the screen, it’s interesting to see a return to the traditional black-and-white villain with the acolytes and leaders of the Empire. Tarkin and Darth Vader are throwbacks to the traditional villain roles that were popular during the 1940s and 50s, with their design and personalities taking influence from both real life and fictional Nazis. David Prowse provided the physical acting for Darth Vader and James Earl Jones provided Vader’s voice. Had either actor been the sole performer for the character, I feel Vader wouldn’t be as intimidating as he is in the film. Davis Prowse does an excellent job portraying a character who towers over everybody and demands respect when he walks into a room. However, Prowse’s voice doesn’t quite have that threatening tone that James Earl Jones’ voice does. Contrarily James Earl Jones has a deep commanding voice that can send shivers down one’s spine, but I do not think that James Earl Jones possessed the commanding prowess that would have been needed to fulfill the role of Darth Vader.
One of the most enduring themes I found in this movie is humanity vs. the machine. Now this can be taken in two ways. The first is the most obvious, a group of humans go and try and destroy a mechanized death machine, that can snuff out all life on a planet. True, the Rebels also use technology, but the Rebels’ technology looks less uniformal. The Death Star’s interior seems spotless as if hundreds of people or droids constantly clean the interior of the giant space station. This creates an environment that feels sanitized, uniformal, and practically devoid of individuality. The Rebels, on the other hand, have technology that looks dingier and more used. The Millennium Falcon feels like a ship that has been lived in and has seen action. There are scuffs and marks on the ship, the inside is dirty and stuff is scattered all over the ship. Adding touches like this adds a sense of realism and personality to any vehicle. This starkly contrasts the Imperial forces whose ships look spotless and uniformal. The droids of the Imperials also lack any real sense of personality or individuality. In comparison, C3PO and R2-D2 have distinct looks and personalities and are valued members of the Rebel forces. The second is the idea of free beings who stand together to fight the mechanized forces of fascism. George Lucas was very clever in the design of the empire. He took elements from real life, but not so much that it became too real. The forces of the empire are clad in black and white, and a dash of red is added in later films. This color scheme along with the costume design of the imperial officers creates an allusion to Nazi Germany, which was very initial. George Lucas told the production designing team, led by John Molo, that he wanted the costumes of the imperials to be modeled off the uniforms of the Nazis, and the rebels’ costume design was modeled off the uniforms of Allied soldiers.
The battles in this movie are some of the best fights in cinema history. When I say battles in a Star Wars film, most people assume I’m referring to a fight involving a lightsaber. In this particular instance, I am not. There is one lightsaber battle in this film and it’s between Obi-Wan and Darth Vader. Audiences in 1977 had no idea of the significance and weight this fight should have had. Obi-Wan trained Vader, we are told this specifically by Obi-Wan near the beginning of the film, and yet I didn’t feel that the fight had any real weight or substance to it. The fight looks like two tired old guys gently taping their lightsabers together. Considering the time’s limitations, I still feel it feels lackluster given the context. I referred to the space battles when I said this film had amazing fight sequences. George Lucas was inspired to film the space battles by viewing old WW2 aerial dogfights. Combining footage of the actors swiveling around in their battle stations, with images of a model ship zooming around on a wire, combined with John Williams’s excellent score, George Lucas created intense and memorable scenes that helped revolutionize how we see movies.
In 1997, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the release of A New Hope, George Lucas oversaw the re-release of the original Star Wars trilogy. This re-release included alternating several parts of the movie. While these changes have no serious impact on the plot, scenes are sometimes drastically changed from their original version. Some changes were good, I liked the addition of fire rings to the explosion effects. I find that it gives the impact of the scene more weight to see an additional shock wave precede the explosion. I also liked adding a formally deleted scene, in which Luke is reunited with his childhood friend Biggs Darklighter. I felt that the added scene strengthens the relationship between the two characters, as they are childhood friends and neither are sure they will make it back alive. So, it makes sense that there would be a scene featuring the two young men embracing one another and viewing the impending attack with a sense of naive optimism. I also liked the addition of a 180° turn of CGI X-Wing Fighters flying from Yavin 4 to the Death Star. This added scene increases the suspense because it shows that the Death Star is already about to be in firing range, and how imperative it is for the Rebel pilots to succeed in their mission. Unfortunately, I have more gripes with the Special Edition changes than praises. I felt the addition of CGI creatures, droids, and ships in the Mos Eisley scene was a massive distraction. I get wanting to make your world feel lived in and feature many different creatures, droids, and ships to make it look more diverse and unique, but when your additions make it harder for the audience to see the characters we’re supposed to care about, it’s time to cut down on your vast crowd shots. I also did not like having a CGI Jabba in this film. The scene involving Jabba reiterates everything we discovered in the scenes featuring Greedo. The scene also takes away from the impact of the introduction of the Millennium Falcon, as the scene with Jabba technically serves as the introduction of the Millennium Falcon to the audience. This premature introduction of the Millennium Falcon takes away from the awe factor when Luke, Obi-Wan, and the droids are introduced to the Millennium Falcon. I also found it needlessly silly to have Boba Fett in the Jabba scene stop and look at the camera, as if to say “Hey! I’m Boba Fett, isn’t this pointless cameo cool?”. And finally, the altered scene that has divided Star Wars fans for years, is the Han/Greedo scene. In the scene, Greedo has a blaster pointed at Han and is explaining why Han needs money. In the original version, Han shot Greedo with a blaster hidden under the table. In the Special Edition versions, Greedo shoots first but somehow misses from point-blank range. Some people don’t like the idea of Han shooting Greedo first, without Greedo getting off a shot first because it makes Han look like a merciless killer. Han shooting first doesn’t bother me because Han’s character is modeled off of the classic rogue archetype, which aligns with his character. Han shooting first also doesn’t bother me because Greedo has a gun on him at point-blank range and the chances of Greedo missing are meager, so I don’t find it callous or out of character for Han to shoot someone who is threatening him, and who has a gun on him. Something else that bothers me about Greedo getting a shot out, involves my point earlier about Greedo having a blaster pointed at Han at point-blank range. They try to remedy this by having Han dodge a bit, but the edit looks so bad and it’s blatantly obvious that it was added in post-production.
Star Wars: A New Hope is a marvel of a film. This film should have been a hockey, cheesy, camp fest at best. Practically everything was going wrong on the set, the film faced budgetary issues due to the belief that science fiction movies weren’t considered financially viable, and the special effects needed for the film had to be invented as the film went along. But somehow, George Lucas was able to beat the odds and create an updated space adventure, rooted in classical myth and legends.
Cannibal Holocaust 5/10
R, 98m, 1980
Starring: Robert Kerman (Harold Monroe), Gabriel Yorke (Alan Yates), Luca Giorgio Barbareschi (Mark Tomaso), Francesca Ciardi (Faye Daniels) and Perry Pirkanen (Jack Anders). Directed by Ruggero Deodato. Produced by Franco Di Nunzio and Franco Palaggi. Screenplay by Gianfranco Clerici. Music by Riz Ortolani.
Often penned as “the most disturbing film ever made”, Cannibal Holocaust is a film marred with controversy. Upon the release of this film the director Ruggero Deodato, was arrested and charged with obscenity. The French magazine Photo suggested that certain deaths depicted in the film were real, which would have made Cannibal Holocaust a snuff film. Upon the publication of the Photo article, the charges against Deodato were amended to include murder. This is partially because the actors and actresses had to sign contracts with the production which ensured that they would not appear in any type of media, motion pictures, or commercials for one year following the film’s release. This was done to promote the idea that Cannibal Holocaust was truly the recovered footage of missing documentarians. To prove his innocence, Deodato arranged for the four main actors to make an appearance on an Italian television interview, to prove that they were still alive. The film would become infamous again during the “video nasties” scare. The video nasties were a list of films that the British National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association considered to be absolutely apprehensible. Other titles on this list included Faces of Death, SS Experiment Camp, Night of the Bloody Ape, and the Last House on the Left. The video nasties caused such a stir in Britain during the 1980s and 90s, video stores that carried these titles could face fines or even jail time if convicted for the sale of what was considered obscene and immoral material. Cannibal Holocaust is one of the most widely brought up films when talking about video nasties, but I’m not entirely sure that this film deserves the tremendous backlash and contrives that it stirred up.
The film centers around the mysterious disappearance of a group of documentary filmmakers led by Alan Yates (Gabriel Yorke), who has gone missing after journeying to the Amazon rainforest to film a documentary on the indigenous cannibal tribes. Harold Monroe (Robert Kerman), an anthropologist teaching at NYU, leads a rescue mission to find the missing filmmakers. Arriving in the Amazon rainforest, Monroe and his team are greeted with hostility from the native tribe. They learn that the natives’ hostility stems from the ill-treatment they received at the hands of the missing filmmakers. After befriending members of the Ya̧nomamö, Monroe and his team are led to the skeletal remains of the filmmakers, along with their filmmaking equipment. Back at NYU, Monroe is pressured by the executives of the Pan American Broadcasting System to broadcast the footage from the recovered film. Monroe insists that he views the footage before he agrees to help broadcast anything. One of the executives shows Monroe Yates’ previous documentary, The Last Road to Hell. Monroe learns from the executive that Yates had purposely staged some of the documentary’s more dramatic moments. Monroe then sits to review the filmmakers’ final footage. What he discovers is the vile truth, as to what happened to the filmmakers and their misdeeds in the final days leading to their deaths. Monroe is then forced to make a decision as to whether or not he should allow the footage to be broadcast to the general public.
Cannibal Holocaust is presented partially in the found footage style of cinema, which would later be popularized by films such as The Blair Witch Project, Cloverfield, and Paranormal Activity. While many have criticized this technique as gimmicky or jarring, I actually feel that this film benefits from utilizing this technique of cinematography. The found footage element comes into play during the presentation of the dead filmmakers’ final footage. I find that the found footage elements adds a sense of realism to the film, that I feel the film would have been felt a bit lost had the cinematography been the same throughout the film. Some may find this style of filmmaking jarring, but I personally would have found it far more jarring had the film been consistently in one format, even though the audience is being shown footage used from a different camera.
Despite being penned as “the most controversial film ever made”, Cannibal Holocaust actually has something important to say. Censorship is still a hot-button issue throughout the world, just as it was when this film was originally made. When director Ruggero Deodato set out to make this film, he had no intention of creating a mainstream film that would be adored by the public. He wanted to create something that started a discussion about censorship and posed the question; when is something so vile and shocking, that it can’t be shown on television? Given my background in history, I get both sides of the argument. Some content that is super vile and disgusting needs to be shown and understood by the general public, and some things should not be aired at all, because it could inspire future copy-cats to try and recreate the original controversial act and one-up it. The crew of filmmakers who set out to film a documentary on cannibal tribes living in the Amazon rainforest did some truly horrendous things. An example would be the documentary crew herded some of the local village natives into a hut, barring any exits, and setting the hut ablaze. The reason they committed this atrocity was to make their documentary more interesting and to stage a massacre. While watching the filmmakers commit this heinous act, one can’t help but be reminded of the way the Nazis would treat the inmates of concentration camps during the Holocaust. The revelation of these crimes, and the gruesome way the documentary filmmakers die, cause Monroe to have second thoughts about releasing the footage to the public. Before witnessing what was actually on the tapes, the narrative was about finding these documentary filmmakers who went missing while filming in the Amazon rainforest. After viewing the filmmakers’ footage, Monroe is horrified at what he sees, and he seizes to view the filmmakers as innocent victims, but as possible makers of their own design. I can see some people entirely missing the point of this film and saying something to the effect of “This film is so unnecessarily violent, that it’s just violence for the sake of violence.”. Director Ruggero Deodato got the idea for Cannibal Holocaust while watching the news with his young son. The news was airing some graphic war images, which prompted Deodato’s son to express discomfort at seeing the violence. Deodato thought that the media focused on portraying violence with little regard for journalistic integrity and believed that journalists staged certain news angles to obtain more sensational footage. Cannibal Holocaust is not a film that should be shown on television, nor should it be shown to children, but I do feel that this film needs to exist for people to watch. The MPAA exists for a reason, and that reason is to warn viewers that a film may have content that is unsuitable for children or sensitive viewers.
Solely based on the title of the film, most people know that this film is going to feature some graphic imagery. Cannibal Holocaust certainly earns its graphic title by featuring some of the most creatively gruesome deaths in cinema history. In one scene, a native woman is found by the documentary crew, nude and impaled on a pole. In a lesser film, the filmmakers would have used a plastic doll of some kind and called it good. Cannibal Holocaust actually had a live woman perform this stunt. They managed this by having her sit in a small seat that is hidden behind her bloodied body and having the actress stick her head into the air with a pole in her mouth. This is a very convincing scene and it still holds up over forty years later. However, I will say that the violence in this film is not meant to exist merely for the sake of violence. The violence in this film has a clear and present message. I feel that the groups who campaigned against this film like the British National Viewers’ and Listeners’ Association, which was led by Mary Whitehouse, completely missed the point of the film. They just knew of the violence of the film and some people, like Whitehouse herself, admitted to never even seeing the film. I find this simply appalling as Whitehouse probably would have agreed with the central message of the film, which has to deal with what should and should not be put on television.
One of the major gripes I have with this film is the all-around bland acting from the cast. This is due in part to the casting of mostly nonprofessional actors. Most of the stars of the film had little to no acting experience, making Cannibal Holocaust their film debut. The only “experienced” actor onset was Robert Kerman as Professor Harold Monroe, and most of his previous acting experiences were in pornographic films such as Debbie Does Dallas. His acting in this movie is par for the course of a pornographic actor but fails to live up to the standards of a serious feature film. The four filmmakers were mostly inexperienced college students, with only Luca Barbareschi having any acting credits to their name. I can be a bit more forgiving of the four dead filmmakers’ performances as they’re supposed to be more natural and somewhat silly, with all of the actors mugging for the camera at times.
I talked at length about the violence of the film and the resulting outcry it caused. Fake violence doesn’t really bother me on film, real violence and death are a completely different matter. Several animals were purposely killed during filming to heighten the film’s sense of violence. This includes a turtle being beheaded and partially torn apart, as well as the onscreen deaths of a pig, squirrel monkey, and a coati. The actors of the film objected numerous times to the actual killing of animals, but director Ruggero Deodato persisted, resulting in several of the actors referring to Deodato as a sadist and remorseless. While I did find some poignancy in the fake violence, I saw no reason for the actual pointless killing of the animals. It would have been one thing had the animals died quickly and humanly. But many of the animals who died onscreen did so screaming in agony. I grew up on a farm and in a rural area, so I have a bit of a higher tolerance for animals dying than the average person, but I can not abide by the pointless and cruel deaths of animals. To put it bluntly, some of the animal deaths were harder to sit through than parts of the documentary Dominion, which showcases some of the abhorrent conditions of some of the slaughterhouses in Australia.
While I understand the mindset of labeling this film as “the most disturbing film of all time”, I really can’t agree with that statement. Cannibal Holocaust at least has a proper plot and has a reason for all of the violence that occurs throughout the film. Cannibal Holocaust is not what I refer to as a “pizza cutter movie” A pizza cutter movie is a film that is all edge and no point. A pizza cutter movie tries to be edgy by showing scenes of intensive graphic nature, realistic and brutal acts of sexual assault, and other abhorrently gruesome acts of debauchery. Films like Shōjo Tsubaki, A Serbian Film, August Underground, and Snuff R73 are far more unapologetically graphic in their depictions of violence and debauchery and would fall under the banner of pizza cutter films. That being said, I would offer anybody interested in this film a few words of caution as this film depicts some very heavy subject matter and several animals were actually maliciously and senselessly killed onscreen.
Shōjo Tsubaki 2/10
NR, 56m, 1992
With the Voice Talents of Minako Naka (Midori), Norihiko Morishita (Masamitsu), Keinosuke Okamoto (Koijirô Arashi), Kazuyoshi Hayashi (Akaza), Yoshifumi Nomura (Muchisute), Sanae Katô (Benietsu) and Yumiko Takagi (Kanabun). Directed by Hiroshi Harada. Produced by Hiroshi Harada. Screenplay by Hiroshi Harada. Music by J.A. Shîzâ. Based on Shōjo Tsubaki by Suehiro Maruo.
In my experience as an anime fan, there comes a time when a person watches anime for the first time and comes to the realization that anime is unlike anything they’ve ever seen before. Prior to watching my first anime, which was Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, I had no idea that animation could go to the lengths that Fullmetal Alechemist was going in terms of content and quality. Granted I was fourteen when I first saw the show, so my worldview of animation was limited. This review covers an anime film that once again pushed the boundaries of what I can sit through. This is coming from a guy who has seen A Serbian Film, Cannibal Holocaust, Salo, and trudged through the swamp of 4chan.
The film opens with Midori (Minako Naka) selling flowers, where she meets the seemingly kindly Mr. Arashi (Koijirô Arashi), who tells her that if she ever needs help to go and find at his circus. Upon returning home Midori discovers a horrible sight. Her mother had succumbed to her illness and is already partially eaten by rats and mice. With nowhere else to turn to (the film never explains why Midori didn’t go to an orphanage). Midori takes up Mr. Arashi on his offer and goes to visit him at the circus to beg for his help. Immediately after arriving at the circus, Midori is physically, emotionally and sexually abused by every member of the freak show. This continues for quite some time until the arrival of the dwarf Masamitsu, who takes an immediate shining to Midori. Under his protection, Midori is spared from any more abuse from the members of the freak show. I’d like to tell you that this film ends on a happy note, but that would be a lie, as poor Midori suffers much more for the rest of the film.
The plot of this film is rather difficult to critique, because when you get down to it, it basically comes down to. How much pain and suffering can we inflict on this girl? Even the one glimmer of happiness for Midori, which is the relationship between Midori and Masamitsu, is uncomfortable as Midori is around the age of twelve and Masamitsu is middle-aged. The writer and director of this film, Hiroshi Harada, initially only wanted to distribute this film exclusively at carnival freak shows, so I doubt plot and characters weren’t the real focus during the production of this film. Instead, we’re treated to the torture and humiliation of a twelve-year-old girl for almost an hour. This film was banned in Japan upon its release and I can hardly fault Japan for doing this. Despite being one of the most graphic films I’ve ever seen Cannibal Holocaust at least had a reason for going as far as it did, it was trying to make a point and in my eyes, it succeeded in that endeavor. Shōjo Tsubaki does not have a message that it’s trying to make. It’s just a film that relies on fringe and shock tactics, which is very effective at first, but when the viewer is constantly barraged with such horrific content, they’re either going to stop watching or become numb to it.
According to multiple sources I came across while researching this film, Hiroshi Harada animated most, if not the entirety of this film. That in of itself is very impressive as animating a single scene can take an animation team several weeks to complete, However, that doesn’t mean that this film looks good. The film’s general look takes inspiration from the Japanese art style known as Muzan-e, which translates out to blood prints. Muzan-e art typically portrays violent acts of murder or torture. In this aspect Harada did succeed as the overall look of the film looks like a hellish landscape of filth, sometimes gore and debauchery. The character movement in this film is minimal at best as when a character does actually move, it’s only through the use of limited animation. Now limited animation can work as it was used extensively in the Tom and Jerry and Looney Tunes shorts as well as animated television series like Scooby-Doo and the Peanut specials. But with Shōjo Tsubaki, the animation style just looks odd and rather jarring. I have to give some credit to Harada as animating an entire film is a Herculean feat to say the least, but that doesn’t excuse the film for looking so rough.
As a long time anime and film connoisseur, I’ve seen some messed up stuff in my day. That being said this film remains the most graphic and horrific animated film I’ve ever seen. Having said that I know quite a few of my readers will see this statement and think “Ok, now I’ve got to know.”. I should know because I had a similar reaction when a friend of mine told me about, calling it the worst animated thing she’d seen in terms of content. To put thing into perspective, in the first few seconds of the movie a character is seen biting the head of a live chicken while it squawks in thrashes about in pain and horror. This film also contains one of the worst things to happen to a dog in an animated project. As soon as I saw the good-natured protagonist caring for the puppies, I knew something terrible was about to happen. I won’t spoil what happens, but I will say that what happens to the puppies ranks up there with the dog scenes from Elfen Lead and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure.
Throughout this review, I’ve repeatedly called this film out on how graphic and shocking it is. Despite all that I saw I wouldn’t say this film repulsed or even really offended me, granted my mileage for what I can sit through has been pushed beyond what most people are probably willing to sit through. Am I glad I saw this film, in an odd way maybe a little, as the film did give me an odd appreciation for life. After watching this film, I even did some research on the film, which is not something I always do after watching a film, and I found quite a few sources didn’t even mention this film. I couldn’t even find an entry for this film in the 2nd edition of The Anime Encyclopedia by Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy. This surprised me as the book is a mammoth sized book that is a great reference guide for everything anime. This could also be another point in the film’s favor as I don’t normally dive into studying a film as methodically as I did with this film unless the film leaves a deep impact on me. That being said I can not out of good faith recommend this film to most people. Even the “nice” scenes in this film are fringe worthy when you understand what’s going on. The only people I can recommend this film are those few people who actually like films that rely on shock value for the sake of shock value, and even then I’d definitely recommend other films like Tusk, Cannibal Holocaust and The Human Centipede over this film, as those films at least had some semblance of a reason for existing, but in the case of Shōjo Tsubaki, I can’t think of a single reason for this film to exist outside of using it for psychological torture.
Mulan 5/10
PG-13, 115m, 2020
Starring: Yifei Liu (Mulan), Crystal Rao (Young Mulan), Donnie Yen (Commander Tung), Jason Scott Lee (Böri Khan), Yoson An (Chen Honghui), Gong Li (Xianniang), Jet Li (The Emperor of China), Tzi Ma (Hua Zhou), Rosalind Chao (Hua Li), Xana Tang (Hua Xiu), Jun Yu (Cricket), Cheng Pei-pei (The Matchmaker), Jimmy Wong (Ling), Chen Tang (Yao) and Doua Moua (Chien-Po). Directed by Niki Caro. Produced by Chris Bender, Jake Weiner and Jason T. Reed. Screenplay by Rick Jaffa, Amanda Silver, Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin. Music by Harry Gregson-William. Based on Disney’s Mulan and The Ballad of Mulan.
When I first heard that Disney was going to make a live-action version of the 1998 animated film Mulan, I was genuinely excited. For the most part I’ve been disappointed by the Disney Studio’s attempt to remake their animated films into live-action films. I largely see them as shameless cash grabs, that are no different than the hodgepodge of animated sequels that ranged from surprisingly good to ok, now you’ve pissed me off by ruining something that I like. I did enjoy The Jungle Book and Christopher Robin however, as they did something different and in the case of Christopher Robin explored a route that hadn’t previously been touched on. When I learned that Mushu, the dragon voiced by Eddie Murphey in the original film, was not going to be in the film I thought, “Ok, this film is going to be serious, that’s just what I wanted, this could turn out great”. And then the first trailer dropped, and I thought “Oh boy, this could be a problem”. I thought this, because I could see they were adding some mystical elements to a film that did not need any of it. The more the learned about this film, and the more I saw of the film in trailers, I was convinced that this film was going to annoy me and boy howdy did it succeed in this endeavor.
The film opens with a young Mulan (Crystal Rao) herding a chicken into its pen. Naturally hijinks ensues much to the dismay of Mulan’s father (Tzi Ma). While chasing the chicken, Mulan shows signs of superhuman abilities, and by this I mean she can easily climb and run on top of a roof, fall off of said roof and land unharmed with a triumphant smile on her face. This acrobatic display causes looks of distain from the townspeople, and it’s later revealed that many of the townspeople think that she’s a witch. That night Mulan’s father gives her the standard talk that is prevalent in most stories and films centering around a young woman living in a society where a woman is expected to be docile and find a husband. The film then cuts to the Silk Road in Northwest China where the Rouran army, led by the villainous Böri Khan (Scott Lee) manage to invade China by penetrating the defenses of the Great Wall of China. This prompts the Emperor of China (Jet Li) to issue a proclamation throughout China that states that one man from every family must be sent to join the Imperial Army to combat the threat of the Rouran Army. Mulan (Yifei Liu) now a young woman, knows that since her farther never had a son, he must go and join the Imperial Army. Mulan also knows that if her father was to join the Imperial Army, he would never return due to his injuries sustained during an earlier war. To prevent this from happening Mulan disguise herself as a man and takes her father’s place in the Imperial Army. Now Mulan must defend her country from not only the Rouran Army, but from the shapeshifter witch Xian Lang (Gong Li), who allies herself with Khan because he promised her a place of refuge, where she will not be prosecuted or shunned due to her powers.
When this film was being made, the filmmakers claimed that they were going to make this film more realistic than the original. This initially excited me until I started to read more about this film. This “more realistic” version features people climbing up walls by running up them and characters catching arrows fired at them. They are able to complete these physics defying feat by using Qi, which is your basic mystical force that grants the practitioner great power. The very concept of adding Qi to Mulan angers me. This is because giving Mulan special abilities that very few people possess actually weakens the character. In the original film Mulan had to rely on her wit and ingenuity to survive. In the original film, Mulan was intentionally made a bit bland so girls could see themselves as the titular character. This is a quite common tactic that filmmakers and authors utilize to make their characters more relatable. In the 1998 animated film, Mulan literally has nothing that the average girl couldn’t obtain or do if she set her mind to it. She also receives no help from a magic user or a love interest, making her unique as a female lead in a Disney film. This film just completely strips the character of any semblance or uniqueness and it feels like a slap to the face as a fan of the original Mulan.
One of the aspects of this film that I was looking forward to was the battle sequences. The 1998 film had some thrilling action scenes, but it was hindered because it had to appeal to kids and in order to appeal to kids, the bloody action of war has to be downplayed. During the battle sequences I was less than thrilled at what I saw. Because Mulan possess the power of Qi, I never felt that she was in any real danger. In the original Star Wars trilogy, Luke Skywalker has a mystical power that makes him stronger than most people, but he still struggles against the foot soldiers of the Empire, so the audience never feels that Luke is too overpowered. In this film Mulan cuts through the Rouran Army, as if they were made of butter. I get the need to give characters their moment of badaasary, but you have to show your character struggle a little bit. The film tries to make the battle sequences look good, but I never once felt like I was watching a real battle. In films like Ran and Kagemusha, I feel it when a character dies. Even if I know nothing about the character, I’m at least convinced that his final moments were of pure adrenaline and fear. These films don’t shy away from the brutal aspects of war, and as a result, I’m captivated by what’s onscreen. I never once felt any semblance of this while watching this film and I feel that is one of the film’s biggest upsets.
Speaking of battle scenes, the Rouran Army utilizes a trebuchet, which is primarily a stationary catapult that flings objects at your opponent. The trebuchet was an effective weapon of war, but the usage of it in this film is a little baffling. The trebuchet was primarily used as a siege weapon while trying to take out a heavily fortified area packed with soldiers. In this film the Rouran army uses one in an open field, against an army that isn’t particularly large. This makes little sense as they would have had to haul the bulky weapon of war all over China, as well as over the Great Wall of China. It also takes quite a bit of time to load, aim and fire a trebuchet, which in an open field you might get two or three rounds out at best before your enemy is on top of you, rendering the weapon useless at this point. In the original Mulan, the Huns use archers to drive the Imperial Army near the bottom of a hill, where the majority of the Hun Army is waiting at the top so they can decimate the surviving Imperial Army in a single charge. This is a smart battle tactic, as the Huns took out the majority of the Imperial Army’s cannons, leaving only a handful of foot soldiers. The only reason the Huns lost was due to Mulan’s ingenuity and quick thinking. In this film the majority of the Rouran army is destroyed due to their own stupidity.
While watching this film I felt nothing but white-hot rage, so much so that I had to pause the film several times to compose myself. I haven’t felt this much rage towards a film since the Mandarin reveal in Iron Man 3. To quote Dewey from the show Malcolm in the Middle, “I expected nothing, and I was still disappointed”. This film legitimately pissed me off. I’ve already reviewed the 1998 version of Mulan, and for those of you that haven’t read it, I loved it and I consider the original Mulan to be the best film to come out of the latter Disney Renaissance. If you must watch a live-action version of Mulan, I recommend the 2009 Chinese film Mulan: Rise of a Warrior or better yet, read one of the translations of The Legend of Fa Mulan.
Howard 9/10
PG, 94m, 2018
Directed by Don Hahn. Produced by Lori Korngiebel and Jonathan Polenz, Screenplay by Don Hahn. Music by Alan Menken and Chris Bacon.
“To our friend Howard, who gave a mermaid her voice and a beast his soul, we will be forever grateful.” These words appear at the end of Beauty and the Beast, during the end credits as a dedication to the great late Howard Ashman. Howard Ashman was a songwriter and lyrist, who played a major part in igniting the Disney Renaissance. During the production of The Little Mermaid, Ashman would hold story meetings, because he believed that a song in a movie should move the story forward, and he believed that animation and musicals were made for each other. I first learned of Howard Ashman while watching a fourteen-part documentary series called Animation Lookback: Walt Disney Animation Studios, created by Mat Brunet. Upon doing some additional research, and after watching Waking Sleeping Beauty, I came to be fascinated by Howard Ashman and I found it to be a great tragedy that he died in the middle of his prime. I also thought that the story of Howard Ashman could make a great movie or a great documentary, and I wondered why this project wasn’t being made. The people that knew Howard Ashman were mostly still alive, and many of them are still creating content to this day. Fast forward to several years later, I hear that a documentary based on the life of Howard Ashman was in the works. I was ecstatic, since I knew and respected the work of the people involved. Don Hahn was set to direct the film, and as the director of Waking Sleeping Beauty, which is my favorite documentary on the subject of animation, I felt the film was in safe hands. He was also close to Howard, so I knew that would add a more personal touch that made Waking Sleeping Beauty as good as it was. Soon after it launched on Disney+ I sat down and watched it, and for the most part the film met and at times exceeded my expectations.
Howard documents the life and career of songwriter Howard Ashman, who wrote the lyrics for the songs in The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin, as well as the songs in the stage musical Little Shop of Horrors. Howard Ashman would continue to write musical lyrics until his death in March 1991, due to complications from AIDS at the age of 40.
The driving force behind the enjoyability of biographical documentaries is how interesting the person being discussed is, and how the filmmakers tell their life story. I have seen quite a few biographical documentaries where the subject leads an interesting life, but the filmmakers made the film into a borefest. To the point where an event that, should evoke great interest or wonder, left me staving off falling asleep. This documentary, as well as the man Howard Ashman suffers none of these setbacks. Throughout Howard, Howard Ashman could be viewed as a proverbial Walt Disney. After Walt Disney’s death in 1966, the Disney Company entered into a downward spiral that almost cost the company its independence, as several companies were attempting to buy out the Disney Studio during this turbulent time. During the late 1980s, there was a revitalization in the Disney Studio that would eventually lead to the Disney Renaissance. One of the people at the forefront of leading Disney’s animation department into the Disney Renaissance was Howard Ashman. Howard Ashman helped create the Disney song formula that dominated the Disney Renaissance. The intro song, the I want song, the villain song, the love song that can double as a pop song and the big number, are all musical staples that can be found in most of the films released during the Disney Renaissance. Howard Ashman had a background in musical theater, so he knew the importance of progressing the story through music. This is a lesson that Howard drilled into the people who worked on the films of the early Disney Renaissance. This lesson would pay off the songs of the Disney Renaissance either progress the story along, reveal something about a character or introduce the audience to the world in which the characters inhabit.
The final part of the documentary covers Howard Ashman’s struggles with aids behind the scenes of The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. This sequence initially had me a little worried, as it could easily come off as melodramatic or it could drag the documentary down. Instead, what we got was a very touching tribute to a man, made by people who loved him tremendously. Several times throughout the documentary, you can see the lumps in people’s throats forming, and they pause for a bit to conduct themselves, this makes the events being discussed seem all the more real. When Alan Menken recounted the story of learning about Howard’s illness, the day after they both won Oscars for their work on The Little Mermaid, a lump formed in my throat for a minute, which is a rare occurrence for me as I rarely tear up during movies. Part of the tragedy of Howard’s death is due to the abruptness of his death. Howard knew when he started writing the lyrics for the songs of Beauty and the Beast, that he was not going to live to see the completed film. Instead of moping about and feeling sorry for himself, like so many of us might do, Howard gathered the rest of his strength and set out to make Beauty and the Beast as good as he possibly could. He succeeded in this endeavor, which makes it all the more tragic that he never got to see the completed film.
Similarly, to Waking Sleeping Beauty,the film utilizes archival videos and stock photos, rather than modern interviews. However, unlike Waking Sleeping Beauty, Howard does something new. Throughout the documentary, whenever a song plays that was written by Howard Ashman, lyrics appear on the screen, and I feel this is a nice little touch, that lets the audience bask in the witty lyrics of songs that many people in my generation brew up singing. When I first sat down to watch this movie, I was a bit concerned that it would just be a repeat of Waking Sleeping Beauty, instead Howard acts more like a companion piece to Waking Sleeping Beauty. Now this doesn’t mean that one has to watch Waking Sleeping Beauty (although I’d certainly recommend it from an entertainment perspective) in order appreciate Howard. A person could go into Howard, having never heard of the principal characters, or Waking Sleeping Beauty. It would certainly help if the viewer knew a bit about the principal characters or had seen Waking Sleeping Beauty as the initiated viewer would receive a deep understanding of the events and people being portrayed on screen.
For me, this documentary succeeds at everything a documentary should set out to do. It was entertaining, I learned something new while watching it and I felt something while watching. I majored in history in college, and as such I have seen some documentaries that were not only boring, but were generic with their presentation of the facts, this documentary suffers from none of these flaws. While I still prefer Waking Sleeping Beauty to this film, Howard is still a highly enjoyable film that fans of music, animation and Disney should all watch. If these things don’t excite you, I’d still recommend the film, as the film is highly enjoyable, and it focuses on an interesting individual who pursed his passions and gave the world some of the most memorable songs to grace the silver screen.
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