ACTING

The recent comments on my Facebook post on who should or should not have won the 1972 Best Actor Oscar, (I went with Brando and hopefully I will explain why), has prompted me to take a look at what constitutes good, or maybe bad, acting and to take a look at a few of those actors that are considered 'great' or the best. Acting seems to provoke a wealth of feeling with some of my Facebook friends coming to metaphorical blows on the subject.  Looking at those candidates for the Best Actor Oscar in 1972 I went, as did the Academy, with Brando's Don Corleone in THE GODFATHER, a performance many felt was nothing more than ham and yes, from quite early on in his career Brando had a propensity for ham.  Some, myself included, think he is still one of the all-time greats, a judgement I've reached based on a handful of performances, THE GODFATHER being just one, and I don't think there are too many people who will deny just how great he was at the start in films like A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE, JULIUS CAESAR and ON THE WATERFRONT.  Unfortunately he got lazy early, coming to rely on mannerisms and funny voices. Sometimes it worked, (VIVA ZAPATA, THE YOUNG LIONS), but mostly it didn't, (dreadful as Napoleon in DESIREE, in pantomime mode in THE TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON and just plain weird in MUTINY ON THE BOUNTY).

The older he got the fatter he got and sometimes I had to pinch myself to think the guy in THE APPALOOSA or THE COUNTESS FROM HONG KONG was the same man who played Terry Malloy. However, his 'comeback' performance in THE GODFATHER showed just how good he once was, Yes, he relied heavily on mannerisms and make-up here but to great effect in building the character from scratch.  Like his best early work it was often the gestures, the silences, his way with a single line, (the way he said 'the funny papers' in his final scene), that made this performance great and he was equally good the following year in his much more method-orientated performance in LAST TANGO IN PARIS.

The Method?  What's that all about? You could say it's the difference between what Laurence Olivier did and what Dustin Hoffman does.  If Olivier liked to 'act', Hoffman likes 'to be' yet both were capable of hamming, both were capable of bad acting. I never saw Olivier on stage, (I once queued for day tickets for a performance of THE DANCE OF DEATH but missed out), so I can only judge him on his screen work.  He was, of course, great in Shakespeare. His RICHARD III may be the greatest single performance on film and in the right role, (REBECCA, CARRIE, THE ENTERTAINER, on television in both A VOYAGE ROUND MY FATHER and in BRIDESHEAD REVISITED), he could be just as good but I am not a fan of his work in WUTHERING HEIGHTS in which I felt he was simply miscast as Heathcliffe and in old age he often reverted to some appalling mannerisms reaching a nadir in THE JAZZ SINGER.

Hoffman started at the top. Though too old for the part he was perfect as Benjamin Braddock in THE GRADUATE and two years later he disappeared totally into the character of Rizzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY, a performance that showed he was as much a character actor as a method actor and subsequently he has been cast as much for his ability to play 'a role' as a variation of himself.  He has won two Oscars and for two very different parts, playing a 'character', adequately rather than brilliantly in my opinion in RAIN MAN and playing a living, breathing human being in KRAMER VS KRAMER.

The actors I've mentioned, of course, are ones most people rate as 'the best'. There are others that we all have opinions about, (Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Spencer Tracy, Henry Fonda, James Stewart and the actress who may be the best to come from 'classic' Hollywood, Olivia De Havilland as well as the post-method school that includes Pacino and Jack Nicholson, not to mention Meryl with her 3 Oscars and 21 nominations), all capable of the best of acting and the worst. As I've said, acting isn't a science but an art; it is a job of work and we all have our bad days.  Of course, there are some actors I have always maintained are incapable of giving a bad performance,the ones I think of as the unsung heroes. For me, the greatest character actor will always be Ward Bond , who like Gene Hackman, is someone who couldn't give a bad performance if he tried, (and yet who is someone  totally ignored by Oscar), just as that old ham Maria Ouspenskaya could never give a good one. It is, you see, subjective. I am often surprised by the awards given to actors sometimes at the expense of others.  Recently I saw Andrew Garfield give one of the most phenomenal stage performances I have seen in 50 years of theatre-going, playing Prior Walter in both parts of ANGELS IN AMERICA yet his work was overlooked at the Oliviers in favour of Bryan Cranston in NETWORK. Admittedly I haven't seen Cranston's work but could it really have been better than Garfield's.


As I continue to single out my top 5 performances of the year in film I know I will incur the wrath of many people reading these posts as I choose which performance I would pick as the best, being castigated for leaving out a particular favourite of someone, (or even putting someone in the 'wrong' category; was Brando's performance in THE GODFATHER a lead or a supporting turn?).  I myself, like Joseph Corral and Craig Dudley, have acted on stage but unlike them never professionally. I was at one time a member of the '71 Players and, quite frankly, I was terrible. I could never seem to get into the part I was playing. I knew just how wooden I was and only came alive on occasions when I  committed the cardinal sin of improvising.  However, in real life I may be a very fine actor. As a Civil Servant I worked my way up the ladder fairly quickly, not because I was particularly good at my job or actually cared very much about what I was doing but because I was good at playing a role. I knew how to be the person people wanted me to be and I was good in interviews.  Now I hear you say, he's insincere but not at all. The role I was playing was that of myself; you get in me exactly what you see. Mr Shakespeare knew that all those centuries ago when he said 'All the world's a stage...' I shall leave you to reach your own conclusions on the rest of that sentence,
but not at all. The role I was playing was that of myself; you get in me exactly what you see. Mr Shakespeare knew that all those centuries ago when he said 'All the world's a stage...' I shall leave you to reach your own conclusions on the rest of that sentence,

4 'PERSONAL' FILMS

 1) VIRIDIANA. I have loved Bunuel's masterpiece since first seeing it in Birmingham's Electric Cinema, (currently the oldest working cinema in the UK), almost 50 years ago and it has stayed with me until the present day. Why? Well, I am a Catholic and I still 'practice' and this is a very Catholic film. Actually, most people would say it is the most 'Anti-Catholic' of films since finally piety is thrown over in favour of 'sin' and this is one of the few great films to tackle the subject of Catholic guilt. You might say all good Catholics are permanently guilty; it's drilled into us from birth so I can see myself somewhere up there on the screen, in the foreground or in the background, every time I see VIRIDIANA. Hopefully. unlike the heroine here, I will have my cake and eat it, too. 

2) THE QUIET MAN. I'm not just Catholic but an Irish Catholic and I love being Irish, as in born on the island of Ireland which is probably why I love THE QUIET MAN so much. This is the greatest (and the worst) of Irish films, a film that conjures up an Ireland that is basically mythical and the Ireland of our dreams. Of course, I have visit Cong where it was filmed and why not and of course it is one of the worst. It paints all us Irish men as priest-loving, women-beating, drunken IRA men...but then stop and think. Is this reality or a fantasy like STAR WARS. I will leave it up to you to decide.

3) SINGIN' IN THE RAIN. My Irish-Catholicism has nothing to do with this one. I fell in love with the cinema almost from the time I learned how to tie my own shoes and my father told me that I was born with a song in my heart, (though unlike him I have never been able to carry a tune) so why shouldn't I love SINGIN' IN THE RAIN and feel it is 'personal' to me since it is the greatest of all screen musicals and one of the few truly great films about the cinema.

4) BLOW UP. I have chosen this as my fourth most personal film because, while I have loved every frame of this masterpiece since first seeing it, (and making a pilgrimage to the film's famous London park), it was the favourite film of my late friend Mike who died in January. Mike was a true cineaste, a great blogger and a fabulous human being. I know I will never watch this film again without seeing him. Hopefully he is now in that big Art-House in the sky and smiling down on me.

WAGONMASTER

This small John Ford western with no 'stars' but a cast of character actors is one of his masterpieces. It has a documentary-like feel to it as it traces the journey West of a party of Mormons and it may be the most authentic looking of all Ford's films, (it's on par with "The Sun Shines Bright" which he made a couple of years later).

There is a plot of sorts, (a group of bank robbers join the wagon train at one point), but the film's dramatic highlights are almost incidental. The splendid performances of Ford's stock company, (Ben Johnson, Harry Carey Jr, Ward Bond, Jane Darwell etc), adds considerably to the film's authenticity while the nearest the film gets to a full-bodied star performance is Joanne Dru's Denver. Dru was a much finer actress than she was ever given credit for as were Bond and Johnson, who at least was finally awarded with the recognition of an Oscar for his work in "The Last Picture Show". As he said himself, 'It couldn't have happened to a nicer fella'. Add Bert Glennon's superb location photography and you have a genuine piece of Americana that couldn't have some from anyone other than Ford. This is a film that truly honors America's pioneers and is full of sentiment and feeling.

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE?

One of the great movies about the movies, (and great movies about the movies aren't reverential, they bite the hand that feeds them), and the best of Aldrich's 'women's pictures'. Detractors see it as a misogynist load of horse manure about a couple of self-loathing sisters hauled up together in a decaying Hollywood mansion, a too-close-to-home study of the real life rivalry between stars Bette Davis and Joan Crawford or even as a veiled study of homosexual self-depreciation with the sisters as ageing drag queens. But these are the very things that make the picture great. It is precisely because it can be read in this way that makes it such a perversely enjoyable, subversive piece of work.

As the sisters, Davis and Crawford pull all the stops out and then some. What makes Crawford's performance great is that she is never sympathetic even when Davis is feeding her dead rat or quite literally kicking her when she's down, while Davis is simply astonishing. With her face painted like a hideous Kabuki mask and dressed up like a doll that's filled with maggots it's an unashamedly naked piece of acting, as revealing as her work in "All About Eve" and almost as good. Unfortunately the film's commercial success lead both actresses into a downward spiral of not dissimilar but considerably lack-lustre material. But this bitch-fest is the real McCoy.

ALL ABOUT EVE

They say that talk is cheap but you wouldn't believe it listening to the pearls that drip from the mouths of the characters in this, the greatest of all the dialogue-driven comedies to have come out of Hollywood, (at the time it was nominated for a then record 14 Oscar nominations and won 6). It opens with a monologue that introduces all the leading players that is at once literate and cinematic at the same time and you know instantly that his is, above all, a movie to listen to. (What film-buff doesn't quote its screenplay ad-nauseum; gay men, at least according to "The Boys in the Band", are said to know the script by heart). And while drag queens the world over have always based their Bette Davis imitations on the character of Margo Channing, (Davis' greatest role and her greatest performance), the film is never merely camp. The acerbic wit that runs through the film always has a ring of truth to it; the characters, overblown as they are, are always recognizably human.

The acting alone is to die for. Can you believe that other actresses were once considered for the role of Margo? (Claudette Colbert?). Davis makes it her own not by acting Margo but by being Margo. I can't think of another role more indelibly suited to an actress than this. In a lesser film she might have swamped her co-stars but Mankiewicz, who wrote and directed, gives everyone equal credence.

Anne Baxter was never better than as the poisonous Eve; Celeste Holm, wonderful as the clipped, sophisticated Karen; George Sanders oozing epigrams as if from every pore as the screen's most famous critic, Addison DeWitt, (what a name!). These were career-best performances and in smaller parts, Thelma Ritter's cynical, wise-cracking Dresser, Birdie, and Marilyn Monroe's vacuous Miss Caswell, ('a graduate of the Copocobana school of dramatic art'), are just as unforgettable. In the seventies someone had the, not very bright, idea of turning it into a Broadway musical called 'Applause'. While not half-bad you still came away feeling you had seen a karaoke version of "All About Eve".

SHANE

One of the great westerns but, like "High Noon", it is a film that drifts in and out of favour. It's very classicism now can almost seem old-hat; the virtues of a well-made movie, a tale well-told, dismissed for lack of innovation and yet it seemed innovative at the time, a 'psychological' western rather than 'an oater' with as much emphasis on the characters and their relationships with each other as on the action.

And it is a film in which the characters and the action stay in the memory: Shane, the gunslinger who wants to settle down and put his guns to rest, a White Knight out of Camelot come to help the Starrets in their time of need; the Starrets, Joe, the decent homesteader forging out a new life in a new land for his wife and son; Marian, his wife, strong yet vulnerable, the lynch-pin of the family but stirred perhaps romantically by Shane's presence and Joey, the ten year old son who finds in Shane a father and a brother and an idolized hero out of the mythical tales of his own imagination. (The film deals explicitly with childhood loss; as Shane rides off into the sunset who can ever forget Joey's resonant pleading of 'Come back, Shane'?).

Nor does it short-change us on the action sequences either: the bar-room brawl, the killing of Elisha Cook Jr's Torrey, (by Jack Palance, one of the westerns most iconic villains), and the final gunfight, as inevitable and as classic as any in the movies. It didn't make a star out of Alan Ladd; he was that already, but it gave him his definitive role, the one that fitted him like a glove. And as the Starrets, Van Heflin, Jean Arthur, (in her final film) and the young Brandon DeWilde, (his best performance), were the perfect embodiment of the frontier family.

As a director George Stevens, too, has fallen out of favour. There is no denying "A Place in the Sun", "Giant", "The Diary of Anne Frank" and most especially "The Greatest Story Ever Told" suffer, for the most part, from an enforced solemnity and a measured pacing in style that borders on the funereal, but it was a style that not only suited "Shane", giving depth to Jack Schaefer's novel and transforming it into something classic and truly enduring.

VIRIDIANA

Warning: Spoilers

Long exiled from his native Spain, Luis Bunuel was meant to return in triumph and create his masterpiece, which is precisely what he did though his triumph was short-lived and his masterpiece, "Viridiana", quite simply one of the greatest works of art in any medium, proved to be a source of scandal to Franco, his regime and the Vatican. What Bunuel did was to bite the hand that fed him all the way to the shoulder blade. "Viridiana" is virulently anti-Catholic, some felt to the point of blasphemy and it's imagery proved shocking way beyond the point of forgiveness. (Like all great works of art the film still shocks today, so forceful is Bunuel's message).

The storyline is simplicity itself. A young novice is asked by her uncle to visit him at his château before taking her final vows and entering the convent. Consumed by lust at her resemblance to his late wife he drugs her with the intention of raping her but then can't go through with it. Nevertheless, he tells her that he did and subsequently hangs himself. Feeling she has been violated, the novice renounces her vows but moves into her uncle's house determined to devote her life to helping the poor and flagellating herself to atone for what she sees as her sins. The film culminates in one of the most extraordinary sequences in all of cinema as the beggars she has taken in pillage the house and finally rape her in a mock re-enactment of Da Vinci's 'Last Supper' to the strains of the Alleluia Chorus.

All of this, of course, proved much too much for the conservative, staunchly Catholic regime who promptly had the film banned and had they had their way would have had all prints destroyed. Whether or not they recognized it as a devastating satire of Swiftian proportions, viciously barbed and often very funny, is debatable. (Facists are conspicuous by their lack of a sense of humour). Regardless, it sealed Bunuel's fate in Spain for the rest of Franco's reign and marked the beginning of one of his most productive periods though he was never again to reach the inspired heights he reached here. I doubt if any film made since has surpassed it.

WHAT'S UP, DOC?

A classic farce in 3 acts and a coda and it may be the funniest American farce ever filmed. It was Peter Bogdanovich's third film and he made it as a tribute to the screwball comedies of the thirties, (the biggest nod is probably towards "Bringing up Baby"), and it outclasses them all. Bogdanovich knew a good joke when he saw one and the running gags that make up this movie are classics. They may be old jokes but they come up fresh as paint. With so many great one-liners and visual jokes some are bound to fall short but very few of them do. This is a film in which the best jokes have lodged themselves into our collective cinematic conscience.

Streisand showed here that she was a consummate comedienne and she has never been more likable on film while the entire supporting cast are indelibly associated with this film; certainly Kenneth Mars, Austin Pendleton and Liam Dunn have never been better. But the movie is stolen by a great new comedienne we had never seen before called Madeline Khan, (she may be the reason the movie is great). It was her first film and she should have won an Oscar; (she wasn't nominated). Khan never really became a star but she was often the best thing in any film in which she appeared and her early death was a real tragedy. Bogdanovich, himself, may not have sustained the promise of those early years but this and "The Last Picture Show", (and "Targets" and "Paper Moon"), have ensured him his place in the sun.

GOD'S OWN COUNTRY

Waiting a week to review a film or a play can be problematic. Thinking back, surely the film's faults will rise to the surface, the ones you tended to overlook at the time. Of course, the opposite could be true; mulling over a film in your head might make it grow with hindsight. Walking out of Francis Lee's "God's Own Country" I knew I had seen something special; I knew I had seen a film that was a triumph of both LGBT cinema and of British cinema in general. A week later, and taking everything into account, I'm inclined to think that "God's Own Country" could be the best film of the year.

Like Andrew Haigh's "45 Years" this is an incredibly simple film about very complex emotions and issues. The setting is a farm in Yorkshire. The farm isn't successful and in time, it may well go under. It's run by Martin, (Ian Hart), but he's incapable of working due to injury and later illness. The work, (looking after the sheep and the cattle), is done by his taciturn son Johnny, (Josh O'Connor). Johnny is gay but he's practically homophobic; after a quick bout of sex with a guy he's picked up in a cafe, he just doesn't want to know and brushes the guy off with the words. "We? No." Then Gheorghe comes into his life; he's the Romanian farm-hand they hire, initially for a week, to help with the lambing. At first Johnny treats Gheorghe like dirt, asking him if he's 'a Paki' and calling him 'Gypo' and when, finally, they do have sex it's a rough act of lust borne out of loneliness on both their parts.

It's here that comparisons with "Brokeback Mountain" are bound to be raised, both in the setting and the way in which the initial attraction happens, (there's a later, and quite disarmingly beautiful, moment that will remind you of a similar scene in "Brokeback Mountain"), but Francis Lee's film is a much more honest and a much finer film than Ang Lee's which aimed for a Hollywood demographic.

"God's Own Country" is a film that hearkens back to the great British kitchen-sink movies of the sixties and to the kind of films that Ken Loach is still turning out. It feels 'real' and down-to-earth; at times it could be a documentary, (there are a lot of scenes showing life on a farm where the most dramatic thing that happens is a sheep or a cow giving birth). The relationship at the centre also feels real if, to some, a little unlikely. Perhaps the biggest, indeed the only, fault I can find with "God's Own Country" is in Lee's decision to make Gheorghe the strong, silent hunk who lands on Johnny's lap. Wish-fulfillment or what? Nevertheless, and without wanting to give too much away, it's edifying to finally see a gay-themed movie that doesn't end in tragedy. It's also superbly played by basically its cast of four. Both Josh O'Connor and Alec Secareanu are excellent as Johnny and Gheorghe, conveying so much with very little in the way of dialogue, while Ian Hart and especially Gemma Jones are wonderful as Johnny's father and grandmother. Jones is beautifully understated as a woman who accepts everything life throws at her with stoicism and a degree of humour.

Of course, this is a film that won't appeal to everyone. There are people who will find fault with the pace, with the lack of drama, with its political message and I am sure there will be gay men who will see in Johnny and Gheorghe things they may think don't ring true or simply dislike, (Johnny is far from sympathetic from the outset), and yet it is these very contradictions, together with Lee's wonderful sense of place, that marks this out as a great film in my eyes. And yes, it is deeply political without ever stressing that side of things. This may, indeed, be the first great post-Brexit picture to come out of the UK. However you choose to view it, it remains utterly unmissable.

WONDER WHEEL

Sooner or later it will all blow over; the guilty will be punished for their crimes and misdemeanours and hopefully the innocent will get their reprieve. I'm speaking, of course, about the current witch-hunt that is happening in Hollywood that has seen a number of artists pilloried by the media for acts that may or may not have been criminal or perhaps just ill-advised or which may not have happened at all.

We are not talking about rape here or even sexual harrassment but about allegations that have yet to be proved. Weinstein, it would seem, went down with the ship and his behaviour was inexcusable, if not criminal, and he deserves whatever he gets. The same may be said for Spacey who seems to have owned up to being a sex addict with a taste for teenage boys which, of course, is a no-no in America where sex with teenagers is a crime but where the same teenagers can go out and legally buy a gun to kill as many people as they have a mind to since that would be their constitutional right.
I am, as you can see, hot under the collar right now and why? Because I have just seen the new film from Woody Allen and I think it's incredible but just before it was due to hit the cinemas those old allegations that Allen sexually abused his adopted daughter resurfaced making Woody this season's number one pariah, despite the fact that he denies the allegations and there is still no proof they ever took place. Still, in the present climate Woody will be guilty until proven innocent, if he ever is and yes, I am angry.

And now to the movie itself. The first thing you notice about "Wonder Wheel" is just how gorgeous it looks. The DoP is Vittorio Storaro and the guy has still got it. Visually this is Allen's most beautiful film since "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy". The next thing you notice is just how good Kate Winslet is. The plot may not be sparklingly original; there are times when it seems he is spinning "Blue Jasmine" again out of the same old yarn and there are certainly times when his dialogue feels a bit clunky but as the film progresses he draws you in. This is a tragi-comedy with the emphasis on the tragic. I don't think it's top tier Allen but it's certainly only one tier down and without the Farrow scandal I am sure Winslet, Juno Temple and Storaro would all have been nominated for the Oscar.
Of course, Allen may or may not be guilty of child abuse; perhaps the hints were there all the time in the likes of "Manhattan", and if, like Polanski, he has committed a crime he should be prosecuted, brought to trial and let a jury decide. But don't find him, or anyone else, guilty on hearsay or on what the media might tell us; fake news is a reality. Meantime, "Wonder Wheel" is a beautifully made, serious picture that should be seen and Kate Winslet should seriously think about playing Blanche DuBois. Instead, it will most likely be shunned by both the public and by critics who really ought to know better. I think it's his most underrated film since "September".

PHANTOM THREAD

Short bursts of enthusiasm on Facebook aren't enough, I fear, for most people. I've seen "Phantom Thread" twice now within a few weeks and I stand by my claim that it's a masterpiece. Why? Well, it's a Paul Thomas Anderson film but that, in itself, means nothing. Despite my reverance for Anderson, (let's just say "Boogie Nights", "Magnolia" and "The Master"), even the greatest of film-makers can fall flat, (Hitchcock on a couple of occasions, Antonioni with "The Red Desert"), but this extraordinary film seems to me to be perfection. Indeed, there wasn't a frame that didn't excite me, a line of dialogue that didn't thrill me, a performance less than brilliant, (and I am speaking of the smallest of parts as well as of the three principles). Five minutes in and I knew I was watching something really special.

It's a love story, though one soaked in perversity. I don't want to give too much away to those of you who have yet to see it and to say more would be to say too much, but it's a love story nevertheless. It's also a beautifully understated study in sadomasochism though who is the sadist and who is the masochist is a matter of debate; for now let's just call it a psychological comedy-thriller with an equal emphasis on the comedy as on the thrills. Anderson's genius is to create two characters in whom we utterly believe and yet who, by their very eccentricities, remain two of the most strikingly original characters in recent cinema and, of course, he has got stunning performances from both Daniel Day-Lewis and Vicky Krieps as the lovers in question, (and an equally stunning performance from Lesley Manville as the dragon sister whose bark, it would appear, is worse than her bite). Yet even that wouldn't qualify "Phantom Thread" for masterpiece status. So what does?

Reynolds Woodcock, the character played by Day-Lewis, is a master couturier, fastidious to the point of suffering from OCD and Anderson surrounds him, and fills his film, with a myriad of telling details, details that as much as the fastidious Day-Lewis' fastidious acting allows us to get into Reynold's head, (the same details work equally well for Krieps' character Alma). This is a man who sews little keepsakes into his garments, who carries his mother with him wherever he goes, (he's a classic 'Mommy's Boy'), while Alma's early stint around kitchens certainly comes in handy when she needs it too, so the design of the film, the cinematography are crucial to its success. So too is Jonny Greenwood's great score. Here is a film positively drowning in music, drowning in the kind of music that films of the fifties, the period in which it is set, might have drowned in. So I stand by my claim that this is a masterpiece and one I know will stand up to repeated viewings. If I see a better film this year it will have been a very good year indeed.