What I'm Watching: Metropolis

Image: wikipedia.com

I'll never be a film critic, Gentle Readers, partly because my preferences are for movies like The Princess Bride and not movies like Apocalypse Now.  I've experienced enough fear and violence to last me a lifetime; violence on the silver screen holds no glamour for me even if it is art.

But the major reason I can never be a film critic (or an art or theater critic) is because visual experiences enter my brain on a non-verbal level and then it's very difficult for me to talk or write about them.  The more moved I am by a piece of art or theater or cinema, the harder it is to discuss.

Which is exactly how I felt about the restored version of 1927 German film Metropolis.  It's an incredible, fully realized piece of art made all the more incredible because it is a silent film and the special effects are made out of sculpted models and incandescent lightbulbs.  And yet, the whole thing works beautifully.

Image: dystopolitik.blogspot.com

Metropolis is a dystopian nightmare in which a few privileged people live and frolic in a futuristic industrial complex envisioned and overseen by one man while the rest of the population lives underground and works to keep the machinery of progress going in 10-hour shifts around the clock.

Image: 2009and-scene.blogspot.com

The filmmakers depict a deep suspicion of the idea of progress regardless of the human cost.  Replacing people with machines that have no heart or feelings only makes matters worse.  One human-like robot is introduced to the city and chaos ensues.

Image: theepochtimes.com

I'm not going to lie to you -- there's some disturbing imagery in this movie.  Audiences in 1927 would have recognized the Moloch Machine (2nd picture, above) as a metaphor for something requiring incessant and costly sacrifice; as a modern viewer, I thought of something entirely different (and all too real) as people marched to their fiery deaths.  I almost couldn't look at the children dressed essentially in prison garb reaching for salvation as the possibility of death loomed.  The writer and director could not have foreseen what would happen in their own country less than a generation later.  To modern eyes it's as horrifying as it is riveting.

Image: outofthepastcfb.blogspot.com

And yet, in the middle of the nightmare there are some breathtakingly beautiful scenes -- like this one, in which Hel, the woman made from a machine, is an erotic dancer presented like a jewel in a Lalique crystal box.

Part of the beauty of this amazing film is that in the end, we are left with hope: belief in the strength of the human heart to overcome adversity.  The message is as true and important today as it was 85 years ago.

To read full reviews of this landmark film, click on the image links above and also here.  To go to the official site for the film, click here.

What I'm Watching: Top Hat

Image: IMDb.com

I've become a little obsessed lately with the movie Top Hat.  I got it from Netflix last week and over the course of three evenings I watched the movie twice along with all the special features. 

Top Hat has a basic movie musical plot: boy meets girl and falls in love at first sight.  Girl thinks he's a little too full of himself.  Boy pursues girl.  There is a case of mistaken identity and shenanigans ensue.  Boy gets girl in the end.  There is lots of singing and dancing along the way.

Top Hat was released in 1935 as a cheerful diversion for movie audiences during the Depression.  Seventy-seven years later, when modern life gets a little too crazy I want to dive into this movie and pull it in after me.

Who wouldn't want to live in a beautiful Art Deco apartment like this one?  Gorgeous clean lines, but not too modern and sparse... I love it.  Never mind that my apartment is like a lab for a creative mad scientist and tends to have things like teddy bears wearing do-rags lying around.  I like the idea of it even if I would mess up the execution.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a gentleman show up at my door dressed like this?  The gentlemen who come to my house generally show up in Timberland boots and drop clumps of mud on my floors.  Not that I'm mentioning any names.

The fashions for the women in this movie are nothing to sneeze at, either.

Well, this dress is the exception.  When Ginger first appeared in this, I wondered why a woman with such a lovely figure would want to look like Big Bird. Until I saw it move.  I stand corrected.

Of course, Ginger gets an amazing Art Deco apartment of her own.  I want that bed.  I need that bed.  I just know the quilted part is a lustrous silver satin.  Don't tell me it's anything different, Gentle Readers.  I hate it when we disagree.

More Art Deco gorgeousness.  I love everything about this picture: the elevator doors, Ginger's metallic dress with a sparkly jacket, and how cute and stylish Fred looks.  Who could resist falling in love with that guy?

In a film series noted for its Big White Sets, this is probably the ultimate -- an Art Deco version of Venice.  Isn't it beautiful?  I know Venice never looked like this.  I don't just want to live in the past, my friends.  I want to live in the fictional past. 

Images: GlamAmor.com  (A really cool vintage style blog.)

It's Delightful

As you know, my friends, I rarely watch a movie made after 1965.  I occasionally make an exception, which is how De-Lovely, a musical starring Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, ended up at the top of my Netflix queue.  It's about the life and unusual partnership of Cole and Linda Porter.

Before you young folks hop on the comments and say "Who is Cole Porter?" and I have to lay on my chaise longue and sniff smelling salts, Cole Porter was a composer and songwriter who wrote musical scores for Broadway and Hollywood from the 1920s to the 1950s.  If you think you don't know any of his songs, watch the movie anyway -- I think you'll be surprised.

The film includes musical performances by Elvis Costello, Diana Krall, Natalie Cole, Sheryl Crow, and many more.  But for me, the showstopper was Alanis Morissette's rendition of "Let's Do It, Let's Fall In Love."

Set in Paris, Venice, and New York in the Jazz Age and Hollywood in its heyday, the De-Lovely is a feast for the eyes and the ears.  I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

Just What the Doctor Ordered

I've been sick with a cold this week, so I'm spending my days napping, drinking tea, and watching movies. A Day at the Races is in heavy rotation. A friend gave it to me for Christmas and it never fails to make me laugh.

"You must forgive him. He doesn't spell very well." It kills me every time.

Anything Went

Last night I watched Anything Goes, starring Bing Crosby, Donald O'Connor, Mitzi Gaynor, and Jeanmaire.  There was a lot of talent on that screen, but the movie itself was just... meh. 

The costumes by Edith Head were gorgeous, though.  So that was something.

The musical numbers were mostly annoying.  The only thing that saved a few of them was the presence of Donald O'Connor.  I may not be the best judge, however.  I'm still harboring a resentment against Cole Porter for rhyming the words "nina" and "neurasthenia."

Sunset Boulevard

I saw Sunset Boulevard for the first time last week.  Oh. My. God. What a great movie!  In case anyone in the Western world isn't familiar with it, the story centers around Norma Desmond (played by silent film legend Gloria Swanson) , a washed-up silent film star who dreams of a big Hollywood comback, and Joe Gillis (played by William Holden), a screenwriter whose career has never taken off and who is pretty much down to his last few bucks.  Fate brings Joe to Norma's crumbling mansion when he hides in her driveway to avoid reposession of his car.  Joe is drawn into Norma's demented world of faded glory like a fly stepping into a spiderweb.

In other hands, this could have been a very different movie -- but the actors give the characters dimension. Watching it, we believe that Joe isn't just a gigolo who enjoys expensive gifts and a lavish lifestyle paid for by a rich older woman.  We believe he really cares about Norma, who is lonely and lost as well as demented and living in the past.

Billy Wilder's directing is done with a very deft hand -- two parts film noir, one part monster movie.  There is a montage where Norma undergoes a series of bizarre youth-regaining treatments that can't help but make the viewer think of Frankenstein's monster. In heavily shadowed scenes, the character of Max von Mayerling (played by Erich von Stroheim) is gradually revealed as a sort of Dr. Frankenstein.  He is Norma's servant, but he also has an unhealthy amount of control over her.  We begin to wonder what payoff he is getting by lying to her and playing along with her crazy fantasies.

Part of what made this movie so great for me is that I've seen a few silent movies, as well as the early talkie The Taming of the Shrew (with Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford, both of whom had also been silent movie stars).  In The Taming of the Shrew, Fairbanks and Pickford absolutely chew the scenery.  Never before had I seen such heavy-handed overacting, but it showed that the very talents that made great silent films did not translate well to talking pictures.  It made Norma's plight more understandable and her devotion to dramatic facial expressions and gestures sad instead of laughable.  Gloria Swanson gives a tour de force performance as a woman who is like a screen image instead of a human being.

Edith Head did a great job with the costumes.  Most of the characters wear everyday clothes that were fashionable at the time. Norma's clothes, like her personality, are larger than life. They are based on fashionable looks of 1950, but Edith Head added scarves and head wraps, fur stoles and pounds of diamond jewelry -- Norma never completely lets go of the fashions of her glory days. Max is creepy as a manservant in a quasi-military uniform. Norma and Max's clothes reflect that they are living in a world of their own, for the most part oblivious to the fact that life has gone on without them outside the walls of the mansion.

Sunset Boulevard.  I absolutely loved it.