IVAN THE TERRIBLE PARTS 1 & 2

A bit like bad opera; even when it's ridiculous, which it frequently is, Eisenstein's IVAN THE TERRIBLE, PARTS 1 and 2, is still magnificent. This is probably the most 'Russian' of Russian films, a visually stunning historical pageant, (and bugger the fact that historically it may be far from accurate), in part commissioned and applauded by Stalin, (Part One in which Ivan is seen as a hero leading the common people to victory), and in part condemned by Stalin, (Part Two in which Ivan is seen as a dictator willing to do anything to crush his enemies). You could call it a masterpiece of architecture and design; even the actors seem like props or puppets that Eisenstein simply moves around the screen like pieces on a giant chess-board. And yet as Ivan, Nikolai Cherkasov is the most magnificent prop of all. It's a great performance, as tragic as a Russian Lear. One other player almost reaches this level. As the Boyar Efrosinia, Ivan's aunt and greatest enemy Serafima Birman is like a more chilling and ancient Lady MacBeth. Part One appeared in 1944; Part Two was made 2 years later but was suppressed by Stalin and not released until after his death. Together they represent the kind of movie that once appeared regularly on all-time best films polls. It's unlikely they would do so today, this kind of grandstanding having long gone out of favour. A third part, to what would have been a trilogy, never materialised due to the director's early death.

BLACKHAT

Despite its relative failure at the box-office BLACKHAT is typical, and typically brilliant, Michael Mann. The theme is cyber-crime, the plot almost irrelevant. This is Mann at his sinewy, abstract best; another visual tour-de-force, (DoP Stuart Dryburgh), as hacker extraordinaire Chris Hemsworth and associates track a mysterious cyber-criminal from China to the US and back again. When the denouement comes it's actually a bit of let down until you realise it never mattered that much to begin with. What does matter is Mann's remarkable handling of the action and his brilliant build up of suspense; even when we know a bomb is about to go off under a car it still shocks us when it eventually happens. Unquestionably this is his best film since HEAT and like HEAT it has a terrific gun-battle midway through, (here we get two great gun-battles mid-movie), and a brilliantly choreographed shoot-out for the climax. Okay, so it doesn't have De Niro or Pacino but then this is hardly an actor's piece. It's a director's picture and it puts Mann, now 71 but working like a 30 year old, right back on top.

PELO MALO

"Pelo Malo" may turn out to be one of the great films about childhood. It is also one of the few movies that could loosely fit into the criteria of New Queer Cinema since it deals with the subject of a nine year old boy who almost certainly will grow up gay. He lives in the slums of Caracas with his mother and baby brother and it's his obsession with his hair, among other things, that leads his mother to conclude that he might, indeed, be gay and she's not the type of mother who wants a gay son. Fundamentally the issues on display here are notions of machismo and homophobia and they are treated with a good deal of sensitivity and some humour by the director Mariana Rondon.

As the boy, little Samuel Lange Zambrano is really quite extraordinary and Samantha Castillo is equally good as the mother struggling to keep her family together. Indeed, the naturalistic acting of the whole cast is to be commended. This is largely down to the intuitive direction of Rondon whose documentary-style approach is not far removed from Italian neo-realism and, although this is only her third feature in 16 years, marks her out as someone to watch.

ONIBABA

"Onibaba" is one of the cinema's masterpieces of horror, perhaps because the horrors it depicts are appallingly real and because the director, Kaneto Shindo, has succeeded in making a film that is truly a work of art. It is set in 14th century Japan where two women, a mother and her daughter-in-law, kill wounded samurai, steal their armour and bury them in a deep hole in the middle of a sea of grass.

It's a visually stunning film, shot in widescreen and in black and white by the great cinematographer Kiyomi Kuroda and death permeates almost every scene, (either death or sex and here they are intrinsically linked). The women are monsters but only because war and the male-dominated society in which they are forced to survive has made them so. Shindo's extraordinary film is as much a critique of medieval Japan as it is an outright horror film. Praise, too, for Hikaru Hayashi's tremendous score, which like the best scores in the best horror films, adds considerably to the sense of dread.

KING OF NEW YORK

Abel Ferrara's masterpiece is in the same genre and the same class as DePalma's "Scarface". Christopher Walken, (superb, as always), is the titular "King of New York", a major drug dealer who wants to use his ill-gotten gains for more altruistic purposes, as in building a children's hospital. but the police and most of his associates don't see things his way.

This was as close to a mainstream movie as Ferrara ever made though the somewhat unusual storyline and treatment may not be quite what you would expect. This is a gangster movie that sits somewhere between the art-house and the multiplex. It's also the most visually intoxicating of Ferrara's films; it's got a sheen to it that you don't usually associate with this director and it has one hell of a car chase and gun battle in the rain. It's also got the starriest of his casts; apart from Walken there's David Caruso, Laurence Fishburne, Wesley Snipes, Giancarlo Esposito and a terrific Victor Argo. Mainstream or not, the film has settled into major cult sta
tus and as such is regularly revived.

THE HAPPY PRINCE

Rupert Everett was born to play Oscar Wilde, at least the older Wilde, (Everett is now 59). I'd already seen him play Wilde on stage, magnificently, in David Hare's "The Judas Kiss"; now he has written and directed the film "The Happy Prince" which deals in large part, (it's mostly told in flashback), with the period after his release from Reading Gaol. He, of course, takes on the role of Wilde once again and gives the kind of performance that should get him an Oscar of a different kind.

This is no vanity project but one full of passion and love of his subject. He gives us an Oscar that is vain, glorious and in the throes of the most terrible pain; this is an Oscar warts and all. He dominates every frame of the picture but has also assembled a superb supporting cast. Both Colin Morgan as Bosie and Edwin Thomas as Robbie Ross are splendid but so too are Emily Watson as Constance, Colin Firth as Reggie Turner, John Standing as his doctor and Tom Wilkinson as the priest who gives him the last rites. These may amount to nothing more than cameos but what glorious cameos they are. This is an actor's piece and no mistake.

However, for a work that is primarily literary and for a first-time director Everett also displays a very keen visual eye. This is a handsome period piece but far from a stuffy one. Everett manages to capture the flavour of Oscar's rise and fall beautifully. Here is a film that is heartbreakingly sad and strangely uplifting at the same time, a real testament to Wilde's genius, (it's certainly the best Wilde movie to date), and one of the best LGBT-themed films of recent times. Unmissable.

THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII

I don't suppose "The Private Life of Henry VIII" is anymore historically accurate than any of the films that followed it but it's almost certainly the most entertaining. It's played for comedy and it works beautifully thanks to the direction of Alexander Korda, the terrifically witty script of Lajos Biro and Arthur Wimperis and above all to the magnificent performance of Charles Laughton as Henry, (he won the Oscar for it and deservedly so). For starters he looks the part, dressed to the nines to resemble Holbein's famous portrait and visually, though shot in black and white by Georges Perinal, it remains a splendid looking picture. The wives aren't around long enough to make much of an impression but Elsa Lanchester gives her real-life husband a run for his money (literally) as Anne of Cleves. Their wedding night scene is a masterclass in comic acting. It also fairly zips along at just over ninety minutes and over eighty years after it first appeared it remains something of a treat.

MAMMA ROMA

As the Roman prostitute trying to keep herself and her son on the straight and narrow in Pasolini's second film MAMMA ROMA, Anna Magnani reins in her natural instinct to erupt like a volcano and gives a performance that is almost subdued and at the age of 54 she never looked more beautiful. There isn't much in the way of plot. 'Mamma Roma' wants to give up prostitution and become respectable for the sake of her son but her pimp, (Franco Citti), forces her back on the streets just as her son, Ettore, goes from bad to worse, falling in with a local neighbourhood gang.

The real star of the picture is Tonino Delli Colli's roving camera. Stunningly shot in black and white in the nondescript suburbs of Rome this, like Pasolini's debut ACCATONE, already marked him out as a great visual artist. It's a much more formally constructed film than ACCATONE and consequently it's less exciting. Still, it's a great film with none of the sentimentality of a Fellini or a De Sica, austere and beautiful, which makes the director's subsequent decline into self-indulgence and his tragic early death all the sadder.

ON THE ROAD

Jack Kerouac's autobiographical novel ON THE ROAD was always considered, if not 'unfilmable' then at least unlikely to make the transition from page to screen with any degree of success, so I am very pleased to report that Walter Salles' film, while no masterpiece, has largely succeeded in capturing the essence of the book thanks to some judicious casting and Salles' eye for landscape.
There isn't much in the way of plot. The book, and consequently this film, describes Kerouac's friendship and fascination with the charismatic and mostly unstable Neal Cassidy. Here Kerouac is called Sal Paradise and Cassidy, Dean Moriarty who became as potent a fictional anti-hero for the post-war generation of young Americans as Holden Caufield. The fact that Moriarty is a thoroughly unlikable character doesn't help an audience identify with him but Garrett Hedlund is brilliant in the part. Indeed it's mostly the performances that carry the film.

The young British actor Sam Riley is a highly credible Paradise/Kerouac while another British actor, Tom Sturridge makes for a convincing Allen Ginsberg surrogate and there are several outstanding cameos from Amy Adams, Elisabeth Moss, Steve Buscemi, Kirsten Dunst and Viggo Mortensen as the William Burroughs character but it is Kristen Stewart who walks off with the picture as Moriarty's child-bride, MaryLou. Of course, since this film came out Stewart has cemented her reputation with her award-winning performance in THE CLOUDS OF SILS MARIA and was one of the toasts of this years Cannes festival with her performances in Woody Allen's CAFE SOCIETY and PERSONAL SHOPPER.


It also looks wonderful thanks to the lensing of DoP Eric Gautier as we journey back and forth across the US. And yet the film was not a success. Perhaps its free-wheeling narrative, its sense of the past and its cast of not very appealing characters didn't gel with either critics or audiences. Still, it's one of the few literary adaptations of recent years that actually works; seek it out.

AFTER THE BATTLE

"After the Battle" is a very fine state-of-the-nation movie, the nation here being Egypt and the time, the present. This film, which has many scenes of documentary-like realism, could have been ripped from the headlines and, in a way, it was. It is a superb piece of political cinema, particularly to us in the West whose grasp on Egyptian politics may be tenuous at best but director Yousry Nasrallah coats his picture in the guise of a love story of sorts between a brusque horseman, coaxed into supporting the Mubarak regime with the promise of work, and a radical young divorcee who comes to support him and his family and it's a strategy that works.


These are people from very different backgrounds and with very different ideas on how Egypt should be governed, particularly in relation to the role of women. Their meeting will have a major impact on both their lives and in unexpected ways. Of course, this romantic, human side to the story makes the film much more accessible to a wider audience. As the horseman and the woman who seeks to educate him both Bassem Samra and Menna Shalabi are excellent and there's a lovely performance from Nahed El Sebai as Samra's too trusting wife. Unfortunately after its screening at Cannes the film very much disappeared. Do yourself a favour and seek it out.

PAYROLL

Shot largely on location in Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, Sidney Hayers'  "Payroll" is a remarkably good British heist movie dealing, not just with a robbery, but with dishonour amongst thieves. It's not quite "The Asphalt Jungle" or "Rififi" but it's an outstanding example of its kind with a first-rate script by George Baxt, excellent cinematography from Ernest Steward and sterling direction from Hayers. It's also got a great cast that includes Michael Craig, Tom Bell, Billie Whitelaw (superb), Kenneth Griffith and the French actress Francoise Prevost while the robbery itself is brilliantly handled, if only by the film-makers and not the robbers. Something of a small genre classic.

BEHIND THE CANDELABRA

The central character in Steven Soderbergh's excellent new movie "Behind the Candelabra" isn't really Liberace at all but Scott Thorson which, I suppose, is as it should be since the film is based on Thorson's book about the years he spent as an 'employee' and, more significantly, as a lover of the closeted gay star. How accurate it all is we can only surmise since everything is seen through Thorson's eyes. If it had been up to Liberace he would have carried his 'open secret' to the grave. After dying of an AIDS related illness his family still tried to pass his death off as simple heart-failure. Thorson's book, and now Soderbergh's movie, have blown his cover once-and-for-all.

This isn't a conventional biopic by any means. As I said, it's less about Liberace and more about Thorson, in which role Matt Damon gives a career-best performance, as indeed does Michael Douglas as Liberace. Since the film has already, or is about to, screen on American television it means it's ineligible for next year's Oscars. However, both actors are surely assured of the Emmy and the Golden Globe and I'm surprised they didn't share the Best Actor prize at Cannes. Douglas, indeed, is the revelation here. He may not look much like Liberace but he has the mannerisms and the voice off pat.


Fundamentally, of course, it's a film about a failed marriage. It isn't the partners' sexuality that scuppers their relationship but fame, drugs, vanity and the large age difference between them. A heterosexual relationship in a similar situation would probably have gone much the same way. Yes, in Douglas' performance Liberace does come across as a temperamental old queen just as, in Damon's performance, Thorson comes over as a spolit, bad-tempered kept boy but the humanity of both men shines through as well. It's as if they were making the best of a bad situation and finding the pressures, particularly that of secrecy, more than they could cope with. While neither man would have been someone I might have chosen to be friends with, had I known them, (in some different celebrity universe), I think it would have been amiss of me not to have forgiven them their foibles. Soderbergh has said he intends to give up directing in the future; on the strength of this moving, witty, intelligent picture he will be sorely missed if he does.

NEW JERUSALEM

Practically a one-man show. Rick Alverson did almost everything in his film "New Jerusalem" except sweep out the set, (though maybe he did that, too). It is, then, as 'indie' as it gets, down to the non-performances of his non-acting cast. It's a kind of bromance between two guys who work together in a used tyre depot and who are as different as night from day. They are played by musician Will Oldham and the little known Irish actor and writer Colm O'Leary and it has a lovely improvisatorary feel to it. It's also singularly lacking in structure or a real centre while being observational to the point of being almost a documentary with Alverson, who also photographed and edited the film, getting in as close to his characters as his camera will let him, illuminating their joys and sorrows in a way no studio-bound, audience friendly film possibly could. It's also one of the few films to examine male friendship with this degree of depth and lack of sentimentality and in its own quiet way it is also one of the best films I can remember to touch on the subject of religion. Outstanding.

CRIES AND WHISPERS

In a house full of ticking clocks signalling the passing of time and rooms of bright red redolent of blood, three women wait for a fourth to die. Two of the women are the sisters of the dying woman , the other, their maid. Is "Cries and Whispers" Ingmar Bergman's greatest film? Perhaps not and yet it remains one of the towering masterpieces of world cinema which should tell you exactly where Bergman stands.

His extraordinary use of colour, (mostly reds and whites; Sven Nykvist won the Oscar for his cinematography), goes some way in alleviating the almost unwatchable horror of the films central situation of a woman dying in agony while those around her are powerless to help her or lessen her pain. There are flashbacks to fleeting moments of happiness and a lot of grief in the women's pasts but for the most part this rigorous and unrelenting film concentrates on that terrible journey into what? Rarely has the cinema tacked the subject of death with such an intellectual compassion as here.

As always Bergman's repatory company of players are extraordinary, down to the smallest part. The sisters are Harriet Andersson, (the one who is dying), Liv Ullmann and Ingrid Thulin, (the ones who wait), and Kari Sylwan as the maid. The men in their lives, (Erland Josephson, Henning Moritzen and Georg Arlin), also play a very significant role in shaping the lives of these women and yet they remain very much in the background. Of course, you could argue that only in Bergman's world could people behave as they do here. These people inhabit a world almost entirely devoid of joy, their only 'pleasure' steming directly from some form of pain. This picture is grim enough to qualify as a horror film and it certainly isn't an easy watch. Indeed, if anything, this was the film that finally cemented Bergman's reputation as cinema's premier master of misery. However, once seen it can never be forgotten and it's a film that repays frequent visits. I reiterate, "Cries and Whispers" is one of the greatest films ever made.

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB

A heist movie like no other; it's particularly, peculiarly British and, of course, it's a comedy. (Once upon a time the British preferred their thieves, and even their murderers, to be genteel as if they never took seriously the nefarious business they found themselves involved in). The thieves that make up THE LAVENDER HILL MOB are more genteel than most and they are played by Alec Guinness, Stanley Holloway, Sidney James and Alfie Bass and their target is none other than the Bank of England's gold reserves where Guinness is in charge of the delivery of the bullion.

This thoroughly delightful little comedy-thriller, (it only runs for 78 minutes), was beautifully directed by Charles Chrichton and written by T E B Clarke, (he won the Oscar for Best Story and Screenplay), and like all the great Ealing comedies it has stayed the course. (For a heist movie it has a great idea). Both Guinness and Holloway give marvellous performances, (Guinness got a Best Actor nomination), and watch out for a split second cameo from a young Audrey Hepburn while the use of real London locations adds considerably to the film's period charm.

WE ARE THE BEST

Lukas Moodysson's comedy "We Are The Best" is one of the greatest of films dealing with childhood as well as one of the most uplifting, and uplift is something you're not always guaranteed with Moodysson. The kids in question are three girls barely into their teens who form a (not very good) punk band but this is only a jumping off point for a genuinely funny picture about friendship based on the graphic novel by Coco Moodysson. It has the flimsiest of plots but a surfeit of feeling and Moodysson handles his young, and not so young, cast superbly.

As the young would-be punks who start the band Mira Barkhammar and Mira Grosin are absolutely terrific and if Liv LeMoyne, as the older girl they rope in to help them, doesn't make the same impact it's simply because she has the more sober role. Otherwise I can't find fault with this film and, as well as laughing out loud several times, I had the biggest of grins on my face from start to finish.

THE HAPPIEST DAY IN THE LIFE OF OLLI MAKI

Winner of Un Certain Regard at last year's Cannes festival "The Happiest Day in the Life of Olli Maki" is a film that lives up to its title; it's a charmer and no mistake. Set in 1962 it's the true story of young boxer Olli Maki who is given the chance to go for the World Featherweight Championship but who lets his romantic inclinations get in the way of his training. In keeping with the period feel, director Juho Kuosmanen shoots the film in glorious monochrome and draws excellent performances from Jarkko Lahti as Olli and Eero Milonoff as his manager Elis and a thoroughly delightful one from Oona Airola as Olli's girlfriend Raija. Like Rocky Bilboa, Olli is a mixture of reticence and romanticism with not a smidgen of Rocky's brouhaha and there is none of the triumphalism of the Rocky pictures on display here. Low-key and often very funny this is a film that surprises in all the right ways.

EARTH

Alexander Dovzhenko's "Earth" is as great as "Battleship Potemkin" or anything else in the Eisenstein canon and yet not many people have seen it, However, I don't doubt that anyone who has seen it will easily forget it for this is one of cinema's great masterpieces. The theme is solidarity or more appropriately humanity as this is one of cinema's great humanist films. It is also, of course, propaganda, a paean of praise to the doctrine of communism that some may find objectionable. However, others with broader minds will see in that doctrine of communism a need and a willingness for the oppressed to rise up and to take a stand against the oppressor and I doubt if anyone can argue with that philosophy. Of course, that in itself doesn't make the film a masterpiece but Dovzhenko's film, made in 1930 and silent, employs filmic techniques like few others before or since. Frame after frame dazzles the eye, the mise-en-scene is sublime and the editing, (remember this was 1930), breathtaking. If I see anything as good this year I will be very surprised.

KIND LADY

The "Kind Lady" in question is Ethel Barrymore. She isn't so much kind as vain and very foolish, allowing thief, con-man and potential murderer Maurice Evans into her home. This began life as a short story by Hugh Walpole, before being adapted for the stage by Edward Chodorov and having been previously filmed in 1935 with Aline MacMahon and Basil Rathbone. This version was directed, (very well), by John Sturges in 1951 and as well as Barrymore and Evans the excellent cast also includes Angela Lansbury, Keenan Wynn, John Williams and Betsy Blair. However, the real stars of the picture are the house where all the action takes place, (Cedric Gibbons was one of the art directors), and the luminous black and white cinematography of Joseph Ruttenberg. Not quite a small gem, perhaps, but very good indeed.

CALIFORNIA DREAMIN'

The young Romanian director Cristian Nemescu was killed shortly after completing this tragicomedy set during the conflict in Bosnia. His death was a double tragedy; the loss of a young life, (he was only 27), to be sure and the loss of a potentially major talent in international cinema. However, despite it's setting "California Dreamin'" isn't so much a comedy of war but a biting satire on bourgeoisie attitudes in a country struggling to make itself heard. It may not be quite in the same class as some of Milos Forman's early Czech films, though on occasion it does come close, and there were times when I was reminded of Jiri Menzel's similarly set "Closely Observed Trains".


The plot revolves around a group of US soldiers, part of NATO, caught between a group of striking villagers and the corrupt station-master who refuses to let their train pass through his station and it is apparently based on fact. Nemescu manages to poke gentle fun at all sides; no-one finally emerges intact with both the Americans and the Romanians coming off equally badly and he does a wonderful job in evoking the boredom of village life. The performances throughout are superb with perhaps Ion Sapdaru as the mayor and Razvan Vasilescu as the station-master the standouts. Those icons of both American and Romanian culture, Elvis and Dracula, also make an appearance.

RAISING CAIN

"Raising Cain" is often cited as minor De Palma but surely even minor De Palma is often so much better than the best of many other minor directors and even minor De Palma can be a lot of fun. His critics call him a plagiarist and his many homages to Hitchcock, (some call them rip-offs but I don't), could, in other hands, become tiresome but Mr De Palma elevates them to the level of art. The plots may often be silly and he doesn't always bring out the best in his actors but the set pieces are glorious if sometimes a little too obvious.

Here "Psycho" gets the full-on treatment right down to the car in the swamp and the psychiatrist's explanation and, as in "Vertigo", he gives us the big reveal quite early on. But it's those set-pieces, in this case a slo-mo climax during a thunderstorm, that carry the picture and, of course, there's always John Lithgow pulling out all the stops and then some as a distinct first cousin of Norman Bates.

LE SOLEDAD

Third World poverty is a subject the cinema seems unwilling to tackle, perhaps understandably so since the movies are fundamentally a commercial enterprise and 'entertainment' is the name of the game. When 'western' cinema tackles the subject, (and I am thinking here of Hollywood cinema), it tends to romanticise it or make it the subject of a thriller so it's often left to 'native' cinema to deal with their own issues and a lot of the time, when they do, the subject is turned around and treated as an 'action' flic or simply ignored altogether. "La Soledad" is mercifully, and thankfully, the exception.


Jorge Thielen Armand's film hails from Venezuela where poverty and crime are debilitating issues. In a society ruled by violence Negro and his family have virtually nothing, living on the edge and with the likelihood of being thrown out of the crumbling mansion where they are virtual squatters. There is no melodrama in the telling of their tale and little drama either. Armand simply observes his characters as they struggle from one day to the next. This could be a documentary and his cast, all playing themselves, respond with extraordinarily naturalistic 'performances'. The tragedy lies in our knowledge that for many people in Venezuela life is unlikely to get any better than it is shown here. 'Action', for want of a better word, when it happens does so off-screen and yet, never for a moment, could you describe this film as boring; the potential for violence never actually seen is never far from the surface. Let's hope this extraordinary film finds the audience it deserves.

NOTHING SACRED

It was remade as a vehicle for Martin & Lewis and turned into a Broadway musical but William Wellman's original was a gold-plated joy from start to finish. I suppose you could call "Nothing Sacred" a satire on sensationalism in the newspaper business or maybe just one of the funniest movies ever made, (the writer was Ben Hecht working at the top of his game). It's the one about the girl dying of radium poisoning
who then discovers she isn't but keeps the pretence up anyway, (yes, it's a comedy perhaps not in the best of taste), and it has great performances from Carole Lombard, Fredric March, Charles Winninger and Walter Connolly, magnificent as the gruff editor of the newspaper March works for. Indeed the only fault I can find with the film is the decision to shoot it in colour, however pretty it might look.

THE GREATEST DIRECTOR OF THEM ALL

ALFRED HITCHCOCK – THE WORLD'S GREATEST DIRECTOR

There's Bergman and there's Fellini; there's Antonioni and there is Satyajit Ray. Today there is even Scorsese and it you want to push the envelope you might even include the Coens or one of those Anderson boys, Paul Thomas or Wes, (no relation). But name one who has gone into the lexicon, who has produced their own adjective to describe, not just a way of working, not even just a genre, but an artistic and psychological history of cinema that spanned six decades. The only one I can think of is Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest director of all time.

In an age when the movies meant to most people actors and actresses Hitchcock was only one of two people behind the camera, (the other was Walt Disney), known the world over. He was, of course, an entertainer beginning his career in his native Britain before moving to America in 1940. His first American film, "Rebecca" won the Oscar for Best Picture though Hitchcock himself lost the best director prize to John Ford, the only director to date to have won four directing Oscars while Hitchcock, remarkably, never won a competitive Oscar, perhaps in the mistaken belief that entertainers were not worthy of the big prizes

.

In Britain he had already earned the title 'The Master of Suspense'. His much altered version of John Buchan's "The 39 Steps" was the first of his masterpieces, a film in which one set piece followed another. His cosier, "The Lady Vanishes", was the second of his masterpieces and to some fans remains his best loved film. It was its international success that launched his American career. "Rebecca" was a gothic romance; in some respects it's an unlikely Hitchcock picture but on closer inspection it's the film's dark psychology, (hints of lesbianism, the memory of a dead woman who haunts the living), rather than the unlikely romance at the centre which dominates. Here was a film that showed 'the master of suspense' had a darker side to him that those earlier British films might have suggested and although the forties were perhaps less fruitful for Hitchcock than either the thirties or the fifties, (an unwise move to screwball comedy with "Mr and Mrs Smith", the faux psychology of "Spellbound", the turgid courtroom melodrama of "The Paradine Case"), it was also the decade that saw him make two of his greatest films, "Shadow of a Doubt" and "Notorious" as  well as ten-minute take experiment of "Rope", which daringly for 1948 hinted that two of its central characters were in a homosexual relationship.

These films explored elements of Hitchcock's nature with a depth that perhaps his earlier films only hinted at.  "Shadow of a Doubt" and "Notorious" showed that both in family and romantic relationships Hitchcock could be cruel, (we had already seen him blow up a boy in "Sabotage"). Uncle Charlie, (a magnificent Joseph Cotton), was a sexual predator who was prepared to murder his doting niece, (an equally superb Theresa Wright), in "Shadow of a Doubt" while Cary Grant's secret agent Devlin in "Notorious" was prepared to prostitute the woman he loved, (a brilliant Ingrid Bergman).

At this point I should point out that while Hitchcock has never been considered 'an actor's director', (his famous and misquoted 'actors are cattle' remark),many performers have done some of their best work in his films; Robert Donat in "The 39 Steps", Olivier, Fontaine and Judith Anderson in "Rebecca", Fontaine again, and winning an Oscar, in "Suspicion", Cotton and Wright as well as Patricia Collinge in "Shadow of a Doubt", as mentioned Bergman and Grant in "Notorious", Robert Walker in "Strangers on a Train", James Stewart in "Rear Window", Milland, Grace Kelly and John Williams in "Dial M for Murder", Stewart again as well as Kim Novak in "Vertigo", Perkins and Janet Leigh in "Psycho", not to mention the hugely underrated Tippi Hedren in both "The Birds" and "Marnie". Could these performances really be the result of a man who is said to have treated his actors like cattle?

In 1951 he made "Strangers on a Train" from the novel by Patricia Highsmith, embarking on what was to be his greatest sustained period. Highsmith was gay and, although never made explicit, so too was Robert Walker's murderer in "Strangers on a Train". He picks up Farley Granger's 'straight' tennis player on a train and tries to talk him into committing a murder. Ironically, in real-life it was Granger who was gay. Here was a thriller than was genuinely thrilling, psychologically dark and crammed full of Hitchcock's best set-pieces. He followed it with perhaps his most underrated great film, "I Confess", his most explicitly Catholic film in which a priest is accused of murder because he can't reveal the secrets of the confessional.

"Rear Window" came a year later. By now Hitchcock wasn't just making 'conventional' murder yarns but movies that were prepared to explore the very nature of cinema itself. Here was a film about looking, about making audiences complicit in the crimes being committed on screen. Here was a movie about voyeurism, (isn't just going to the movies a form of voyeurism), in which James Stewart's photographer, (again a man who looks, who intrudes), laid up in his apartment with a broken leg begins to spy on his neighbours, using his camera's zoom-lens to get a better look. Stewart, Hitchcock and we, the audience, never leave the apartment or the backyard where a good deal of the 'action' happens making this the director's most brilliant and formal use of 'space' as well as providing up with his greatest single set. In the course of his spying Stewart thinks he has detected a murder which is where the suspense kicks in. I have seen "Rear Window" many times and I never tire of it even when I know everything that is going to happen.

In the same year he made what many consider a 'throwaway' movie, again basically using a single set. Talked into making his screen version of Frederick Knott's play "Dial M for Murder" in 3D the film was released mostly 'flat'. To many it's minor Hitchcock but I love the film; its suspense, its comedy, its bravura set-pieces, (who else could have gotten so much out of one room), and the brilliant performances of Ray Milland, Grace Kelly, (the quintessential Hitchcock heroine), John Williams and, as the potential murderer who ends up the victim, Anthony Dawson. Only the bland Robert Cummings lets the side down.

If his next two films, ("To Catch a Thief" and "The Trouble with Harry"), are minor Hitchcock's they are at least very pleasurable divertissements, remembering that minor Hitchcock is always so much better than the best of lesser directors, leading, in 1956, to "The Wrong Man", an almost documentary-like account of a miscarriage of justice. This was definitely not the kind of film we had been used to seeing from Hitchcock up to that point. For starters, it was based on the true story of "Manny" Balestrero, mistakenly accused of a robbery and imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, leading to the breakdown of his marriage and the institutionalization of his wife. It was only a thriller in that we hang on to see it the truth will come out. Hitchcock shot it on locations, adding an authenticity it might otherwise not have had, the main focus of his attention being Manny's breakdown and that of the family unit. At the time both critics and audiences didn't quite know what to make of the film; now it is regarded as one of the best things he has ever done.

In the same year Hitchcock remade one of his earlier films, “The Man Who Knew Too Much”, altering both the locations and a good deal of the plot. The original is beloved my purists who believe we should never tamper with anything and if it ain’t broke it don’t need fixing. I prefer the remake, (it’s both funnier and more suspenseful). It was also around this time that he moved to television with a long-running series of, at first thirty minute and then sixty minute, shows dealing with crime in one form or another. He seldom directed personally but his name and his introductions ensured their success. And then in 1958 he made “Vertigo”, the first of five enduring classics in a row.

When it came out “Vertigo” was not a success, particularly amongst critics who found the lack of suspense and the emphasis on the psychology of its central character a tad on the dull side. However, in the last Sight and Sound poll, “Vertigo” overtook “Citizen Kane” as the greatest film ever made. With “Vertigo” he continued breaking the rules, (with the underrated “Stagefright” a few years earlier, he gave us a flashback that was a lie). With “Vertigo” he let us into ‘whodunit’ about three quarters of the way through the movie. The film was a mystery but not necessarily a murder mystery. Was it also a ghost story? And could it really be about necrophilia? Did James Stewart’s character Scottie really want to mould Madeleine into the woman he believed was dead?

It's a film that repays repeated viewings; like all great psychological dramas it’s the play between the two main characters that grips. Our interest isn’t primarily on what has happened as on what is going on inside the character’s heads. Stewart, arguably the greatest actor in the history of the movies, is magnificent here and Kim Novak, never the most expressive of actresses, is perfectly cast as the woman he finds, loses and finds again, (her very blankness allows us to read so much into her character). It’s not my own personal favourite Hitchcock but I certainly won’t deny its greatness.

His next film, “North By Northwest” may be his most popular and was seen by critics as a return to form. It was an old-fashioned comedy thriller harking back to the spy movies of the thirties and forties. You could say he rehashes many of his earlier set-pieces but on a much larger scale and in the crop-dusting sequence, he gave us one of cinema’s most iconic scenes. Like all great comedy-thrillers it too repays repeated viewings and, of course, it helped that his hero was once again played by the great Cary Grant, way too old for the part, (Jessie Royce Landis, who played his mother, was only 8 years older than Grant), but perfect nevertheless. Indeed, this was just the kind of film the studios would have wanted him to repeat, a sure-fire commercial success. Instead he made “Psycho”, an outright horror film shot in black and white. It could have failed horribly, too but thanks to Hitchcock’s own brilliant publicity it was his greatest success and, I think, his greatest masterpiece.

Innovative in so many ways, “Psycho” was unlike anything he had done before. It begins like a straightforward tale of a robbery with a leading lady, (the superb Janet Leigh), who is virtually never off the screen thus making it very easy for the audience to identify with her. Then midway through the film Hitchcock pulls the plug on us quite literally as Leigh’s Marion Crane is very brutally stabbed to death in the shower, (in what may be the most sequence in the movies), and the film shifts gear once again to become a tale of murder most foul. It would appear the killer is also a woman, the mother of the films newly introduced ‘hero’, Norman Bates, (Anthony Perkins in a career-defining role), but this is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s another murder before Hitchcock tidies everything up in a brilliant and daring bit of cod-psychology in which a psychiatrist ‘explains’ the plot of the film we have just watched. Even knowing the resolution here is a film we can watch over and over again and a film I think I can reliably call Hitchcock’s greatest.

Three years passed before Hitchcock made another film, this time delving further into the horror genre with his screen version of Daphne Du Maurier’s short story “The Birds”. Technically the film is a marvel but it is so much more than that. He never explains why the birds behave the way they do, rather he builds up set-piece after set-piece of bird attacks and ‘action’ while allowing us time to ponder why the humans in the picture behave as they do. Some critics were dismissive of the film at the time as a piece of clever ‘junk’; it is now rightly regarded as a classic.

For his next film Hitchcock was reunited with his star of “The Birds”, Tippi Hedren, (he had wanted Grace Kelly but her husband refused to let her make the picture). After the technical flourishes of “Psycho” and “The Birds”, “Marnie” was a distinct throwback to his set-bound psychological thrillers of the forties. It was about a frigid kleptomaniac blackmailed into marriage by the man who was stealing from and who probably rapes her on their wedding night, (discreetly done, by the way). Critics, for the most part, hated it but again, like “Vertigo”, it has been reassessed and is now quite highly thought of and, like “Psycho”, it ends on a piece of cod-psychology in which the heroine’s actions are also ‘explained’.

By now Hitchcock was 65 and was to make only four more feature films. Though they had their good points, both “Torn Curtain” and “Topaz” are mostly forgotten. In 1972 he went back to Britain where he filmed Arthur Le Bern’s novel ‘Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square” as “Frenzy”. After his previous two films this was seen as a real return to form. It was also seen as perhaps his most vicious film, certainly since “Psycho”. Its villain was a sexual psychopath and by now Hitchcock was getting bolder in showing his murders. “Frenzy” turned out to be his penultimate film. For his final film, “Family Plot”, he went back to California. This was certainly his ‘lightest’ film since the fifties, with his con-artists and thieves seldom reverting to violence. Again, critics largely dismissed it but its pleasures were that of a good script and four excellent performances from Bruce Dern, Karen Black, William Devane and Barbara Harris and it certainly wasn’t the failure that many suggested and turned out to be a better end to his career than many might have feared

In 1967 he was awarded the Irving G Thalberg Memorial Award, the only Oscar he was to personally receive. He had his failures, certainly, but how many directors made as many masterpieces in a career than spanned six decades. How many directors entertained us and probed into the darkest reaches of our psychics as Hitchcock, and often in the same moment. He story-boarded all his films but he cherished good writers. Actors, he is reputed to have said, should be treated like cattle and yet he drew many great performances from his players and he knew more about technique than any director working at the same time. When you watched a Hitchcock film you knew you were watching a Hitchcock film; no-one else made films like him and we will never see his like again.

THE PASSENGER

THE PASSENGER is one of Antonioni's greatest films. It falls into the same deeply enigmatic class as L'AVVENTURA and BLOW-UP, open-ended pictures that deal with unfullfilment, though to be fair, all of Antonioni's films deal with a lack of fulfilment, be it emotional or sexual. The passenger of the title is Jack Nicholson and he's a passenger in someone else's life, having ditched his own out of boredom or frustration. He's a reporter on the hunt for a 'serious' story in North Africa but all he finds are brick walls. When the man in the next hotel room dies suddenly he takes on his identity without knowing anything about him.

It turns out that the man is a gun-runner and Nicholson finds himself in a situation over which he has no control. Another director would have made this as a straight-forward thriller, perhaps a kind of BOURNE IDENTITY action flic, but for Antonioni the film has to be a mystery on the nature of identity, even if the film itself has a much more 'conventional' narrative than most of his pictures. It is, of course, a thriller of sorts though a very cerebral one.

It's full of great sequences and great images. Few directors use topography in quite the same way as Antonioni, be it the sun-drenched deserts of North Africa, the roof of the Gaudi house in Barcelona or a series of dead-end villages in the south of Spain and the film feels truly 'international', not just in terms of its locations but in the universality of its theme. Of course, by its very nature, the film, like BLOW-UP, remains at a remove from 'reality'. People don't go swapping identities with corpses that fortuitously turn up in the adjoining hotel room and if they did it's unlikely the corpse would be that of a gun-runner. Nor do they latch onto an attractive girl, (Maria Schneider from LAST TANGO IN PARIS), that they pick up in Barcelona having first briefly seen her reading a book on a bench in London. But worrying about plot points like this in a film by Antonioni is like worrying over whether Hamlet met the ghost of his father or not.



In what is one of his most understated performances Nicholson is, naturally, superb. The great script was written by Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen and Antonioni himself, the superb cinematography was by Luciano Tovoli and the film ends with stunning tracking shot and pan unlike anything else in cinema. Absolutely essential viewing.