Reviews
The Bank Dick (1940)
A dated forerunner to "Married with Children"
Elsie Mae Adele Brunch Sousé: Shall I bounce a rock off his head?
Agatha Sousé: Respect your father, darling. What kind of a rock?
Egbert Sousé, the main protagonist of W.C. Fields' "the Bank Dick" has no redeeming qualities neither does any member of his family or any other character in this 1940 movie. Given the general fare that was available at the time, it is easy to see how a drinking, lying, dishonest anti-hero such as Sousé could be attractive to movie-goers of the 1940s. Yet neither Sousé, nor any of his acquaintances or family members shows any depth, and the whole bunch is more banal than evil. The movie is in no way realistic, nor does it offer any significant social commentary as a parable or fantasy. Its cynicism was probably very refreshing in 1940, but it hardly matches latter-day imitations such as the TV series "Married with Children". In fact any one episode of "Married with Children" offers more sarcasm and mockery of family dysfunction than the whole of "the Bank Dick."
It is not a bad movie, quite enjoyable to watch (with the exception of the scene of Sousé with the black bank customer, which has distinct racial undertones). Numerous phrases and scenes were stolen from "the Bank Dick" for other projects (for instance, the "it's pronounced Sousé" shtick was used most recently by the writers of "Keeping Up Appearances.") Still, this movie is certainly dated. The only scene that continues to be fresh and satisfying in its own right is the hilarious car chase at the end. The movie is worth watching primarily for its historical value if for no other reason.
Total Eclipse (1995)
The `National Enquirer' does French Poetry
Imagine a movie about Shakespeare, devoted entirely to the Bard's taste in clothing. Nothing at all is said about the Sonnets or "Richard III" or "King Lear" (let alone "Troilus and Cressida"). Instead, we are treated to long discussions of textiles and imported Dutch shirts. Tailors in Stratford and London receive extended attention, but "Hamlet" and "Othello" are not even mentioned...
"Total Eclipse" is this kind of twisted biography. The victims are the French symbolists Verlaine and Rimbaud, and the theme is not clothing but low life. Here are Verlaine and Rimbaud drinking absinth, and here they are having sex (just as Paul Verlaine's abandoned wife gives birth to the Verlaines' first born). Here is Verlaine beating his wife; next he is setting her hair on fire... No scandal (or rumor of a scandal) is left undeveloped, and we are given all the graphic details that would be tolerated in an R-rated movie. As we hop happily from one drunken stupor to another, we somehow forget that these individuals were creative artists first, and faithless narcissist drunkards (perhaps) second...
The movie "reminds" us at the beginning, clearly as an afterthought, that Rimbaud's verse "changed the course of poetry forever" (itself a vacuous and questionable premise). However you would hardly detect anything of the kind in the movie itself. Instead, Verlaine and Rimbaud are portrayed in the style used by Florida tabloids to "report" on the exciting life of present day celebrities. All the sordid infidelities, betrayals, and embarrassments that can be unearthed are described in excruciating detail. No room is left to discuss the artistry, the philosophy, or the poetry.
At the end, this movie does not even qualify as "Cliff Notes" on of the lives of Verlaine and Rimbaud. Rather we get here the "National Enquirer" version of their "biography".
Hable con ella (2002)
The men are sensitive and deep. The women are brain dead.
So, what do we learn about relations between men and women from `Talk to her? The men are sensitive, deep, romantic and passionate, prone to grand gestures and self sacrifice. The women
well
at best they are brain dead. Not since `Tie me up tie me down' have we seen such a Bacchanalia of misogyny. Handsome Marco is tough-looking and virile, but his soul is sensitive and generous, and his eyes are often misty. Benigno the devoted nurse would give his life to `join' his comatose love. Yes, he is a simpleton at times, but he is also selfless and has a heart of gold. And the women? Well, those who are not unconscious are either vulgar (like the nurses in the hospital), stupid and gossipy (like the concierge in Benigno's apartment house), or lazy and needy (like Benigno's mother). As to the main female characters, bullfighter Lydia attempts a bold foray into the professional world of men. She pays a very high price for this insolence. First she is ridiculed (she abandons her spacious house on a whim, because
there was a snake in the kitchen; Marco the brave kills it). Then Almodovar put her in coma. Then she dies oh so conveniently, but not before we are told she has betrayed our sensitive and noble Argentinean lover Marco
The other main female protagonist, Alicia, is a ballet dancer. Since the ballet is not a threatening profession to men, Alicia is allowed to rise from the dead. Yet she says and does awfully little once conscious, and was much more expressive and interesting as a corpse than as an awakened human being. In the background we have Katerina the bland (played very adeptly be Geraldine Chaplin), and the shell shocked Pina Bausch dancers, bumping into the walls. These dancers, who set the tone for the whole movie, avoid the chairs and the tables on the dancing stage only with the help of a quick and efficient man
Well, all this is just a little bit unbalanced I'd say
Gangs of New York (2002)
This movie is about the sets
`Gangs of New York' is a little bit like a Verdi Opera. Yes, there is a story, and often very dramatic and tragic at that. However, the story really does not matter. In Verdi's case, the travails of the heroes and the exact logic behind the events are just background to the main goal the music and the singing. In `Gangs' the protagonists do not sing (though one wish they did, it would have made for a much more interesting film); still the main accomplishment here is not the story or the (very inaccurate) telling of New York's history. This movie is primarily about the sets. It tries to convey an atmosphere, a certain ambience, the street scenery of New York of the 1860s as imagined or wished by Scorsese (from all available evidence we know that New York of the Civil War era did not resemble at all what we are shown in `Gangs'). So never mind that the houses in `Gangs' miss a front wall to allow us to peek inside; never mind that Daniel Day-Lewis plays the frightening' arch-villain `Bill the Butcher' as if Bill were a bumbling buffoon (with a Peter Falk New York accent to boot); never mind that all characters are flat, totally predictable, and stereotypical. Also, while this is not the first time that Scorsese's plots `do not make sense', at least in his other movies (notably the hilarious `After Hours') you were supposed to care. Here the contradictions do not really matter. Once you understood that this movie is first and foremost about the aesthetics of the scenery, `Gangs of New York' with it mob and bar scenes, the riots, and the elephants in the streets literally looks very impressive.
The Komediant (2000)
Sadly the survivors write the history
I must admit to having never been terribly impressed with the Bursteins. When I saw Lillian Lux and Pesach Burstein on stage in Israel they were presenting very poor material, sticky sugary and over nostalgic schlock. The single exception was Itzik Manger's `Megille Lider,' the only memorable work the Bursteins staged post World War II. `The Komediant' describes this single success of the family quite well, but spends the rest of the time on such flops as `A Khasene in Shtetl' and marginal vaudeville acts that were not taken seriously even in their own time. Yiddish theater before and after World War II - in Europe, the US, and Palestine/Israel - had a much better fare to offer than the mindless Burstein acts. Overall, the Bursteins seem to have done relatively little of Ansky, Peretz, Goldfadn, and Sholom Aleichem (and probably no Shakespeare or Ibsen in Yiddish at all) but produced a lot of nonsense such as `A Khasene in Shtetl'.
The Bursteins are survivors, and so we hear about their trivial conquests rather than about the much more substantial contributions to Yiddish theater of, say, Maurice Schwartz and Ida Kaminska (or groups like Artef). Even in Israel of the 1960s it was much more interesting to go to Yiddish programs presented by Dzigan, Shumacher, Segal and Rodensky, than to the miserable productions of this tired bunch. Much time is wasted in `the Komediant' on the insignificant `career' of Mike Bursteyn, the ventriloquist Susan, Susan's wedding celebration, and similar marginalia.
Bursteyn's complaints in the movie about hostility to Yiddish by Israeli authorities are grossly exaggerated. Israel of the 1950s and 1960s had Yiddish newspapers and Yiddish theater. The official radio station (`Kol Yisrael') had two Yiddish broadcasts every day. Somehow, scores of Yiddish performers managed to work and make a living in Israel at that period in spite of the alleged `hostility'. In general, the relative lack of success of Lux/Burstein in Israel was due to the low quality of their acts, not the `inugim' tax. When they finally had good material, as in the `Megille Lider,' the Bursteins experienced great success.
There was some controversy over Finkel's Anne Frank joke in `the Komediant'. I did not find this joke as offensive as the obviously concocted and insincere stories of Lux on the family's `miraculous' flight from Europe. Most offensive was Lux's narrative on concentration camp victims allegedly singing her silly repertoire on their way to the gas chambers. This last tale was really bad exploitation of the holocaust for purposes of self- aggrandizing. Even if the story were true (and I do not think so) it was highly inappropriate to exploit it in this vulgar and base manner.
It is regrettable that `the Komediant' would now become in the mind of many the `historical' record of Yiddish theater on film. Yiddish Theater was much deeper, interesting, and multi-layered than this not terribly important tribute to this not terribly important family.
The Komediant (2000)
Sadly the survivors write the history
I must admit to having never been terribly impressed with the Bursteins. When I saw Lillian Lux and Pesach Burstein on stage in Israel they were presenting very poor material, sticky sugary and over nostalgic schlock. The single exception was Itzik Manger's `Megille Lider,' the only memorable work the Bursteins staged post World War II. `The Komediant' describes this single success of the family quite well, but spends the rest of the time on such flops as `A Khasene in Shtetl' and marginal vaudeville acts that were not taken seriously even in their own time. Yiddish theater before and after World War II - in Europe, the US, and Palestine/Israel - had a much better fare to offer than the mindless Burstein acts. Overall, the Bursteins seem to have done relatively little of Ansky, Peretz, Goldfadn, and Sholom Aleichem (and probably no Shakespeare or Ibsen in Yiddish at all) but produced a lot of nonsense such as `A Khasene in Shtetl'.
The Bursteins are survivors, and so we hear about their trivial conquests rather than about the much more substantial contributions to Yiddish theater of, say, Maurice Schwartz and Ida Kaminska (or groups like Artef). Even in Israel of the 1960s it was much more interesting to go to Yiddish programs presented by Dzigan, Shumacher, Segal and Rodensky, than to the miserable productions of this tired bunch. Much time is wasted in `the Komediant' on the insignificant `career' of Mike Bursteyn, the ventriloquist Susan, Susan's wedding celebration, and similar marginalia.
Bursteyn's complaints in the movie about hostility to Yiddish by Israeli authorities are grossly exaggerated. Israel of the 1950s and 1960s had Yiddish newspapers and Yiddish theater. The official radio station (`Kol Yisrael') had two Yiddish broadcasts every day. Somehow, scores of Yiddish performers managed to work and make a living in Israel at that period in spite of the alleged `hostility'. In general, the relative lack of success of Lux/Burstein in Israel was due to the low quality of their acts, not the `inugim' tax. When they finally had good material, as in the `Megille Lider,' the Bursteins experienced great success.
There was some controversy over Finkel's Anne Frank joke in `the Komediant'. I did not find this joke as offensive as the obviously concocted and insincere stories of Lux on the family's `miraculous' flight from Europe. Most offensive was Lux's narrative on concentration camp victims allegedly singing her silly repertoire on their way to the gas chambers. This last tale was really bad exploitation of the holocaust for purposes of self- aggrandizing. Even if the story were true (and I do not think so) it was highly inappropriate to exploit it in this vulgar and base manner.
It is regrettable that `the Komediant' would now become in the mind of many the `historical' record of Yiddish theater on film. Yiddish Theater was much deeper, interesting, and multi-layered than this not terribly important tribute to this not terribly important family.
Homicide (1991)
Hebrew, Yiddish, and History in "Homicide"
This may be irrelevant for most viewers, but those who understand Hebrew and Yiddish would be quite amused (or perhaps horrified) at the strange accents heard in "Homicide" when these two languages are "spoken". The accents are plain bizarre - even individuals whose first language is English do not utter such strange noises when they try to speak these languages. Several sentences uttered by an "Israeli" were constructed with such disregard to Hebrew style and grammar, that even non-native speakers of the language are unlikely to have created them. This insincere attitude toward the background is characteristic of the story as well. There is little credibility to any of the concocted "history" here; the idea that in the late 1980s we shall have underground elements of the Jewish community of New York whose main focus is events that have occurred before Israel's War of Independence in 1948 is truly strange. I understand Mamet's "poetic license" but this is a bit too ridiculous even for fiction.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
The King Has No Clothes
I fail to see the greatness of "Dr. Strangelove". The movie was certainly timely. It addressed, through somewhat off-center humor, a very serious and pervasive fear that the West has harbored in the 1950s and 1960s. However, the execution here is crude beyond belief. The tastelessness starts with the "symbolic" names, from the mad general "Jack D. Ripper", to the Soviet Prime Minister "Kiss-off". It continues with a large number of rather gross jokes, some plain silly (the nuclear war starts, and the B52 pilot suggests that his crew is to enjoy some "very serious promotions" once this war of annihilation is over), most laced with infantile sexual innuendo.
Especially grotesque are the scenes with the German Nazi advisor, Dr. Strangelove ("He changed his name; it was originally Merkwurdigliebe"). Yes, I know all about Wernher von Braun, but this series of Aryan slogans and Nazi salutes, again steeped in infantile sexual "humor", was just plain silly.
So there are a few good lines executed quite well by George C. Scott, and the scene that has our pilot hero, Major T.J. "King" Kong, ride on the nuclear bomb on its way to the target is amusing. Overall, not too much.
Topsy-Turvy (1999)
Highs and lows
"Topsy Turvy" had several great dramatic moments - Gilbert (great performance by Jim Broadbent) faces the opera troupe, they are unhappy about a cut he made in the text of the "Mikado"; the secret behind Grossmith's (Martin Savage) "illness" is revealed; D'Oyly Carte (Ron Cook) hires the cast for the new opera, stepping very carefully and skillfully about the large egos of his players. The movie also contains breathtaking moments of musical theater, such as the first excerpt from the "Mikado" and the closing scene of the film. Why, then, was this work not fully satisfying? First, it only 'gets going' once the fateful visit of the Gilberts to the Japanese exhibit takes place. Much of what happens up to this point drags on, as if Leigh wanted to make sure we got all the background necessary before we are considered "ready" to see his movie. Second, there are too many side stories that go nowhere. The relationship between Gilbert and his parents (including the odd scene with Gilbert's father) is presented but not explored; the pain of Gilbert's wife (Lesley Manville) is "tacked on" at the end with no dramatic development. There seems to be a bit too much here, and in spite of the length of the film, potentially-interesting material does not get developed properly. Still, the movie is a marvel to the eye
and the ear, and in spite of the "pale spots" it is worth seeing.