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sonofcohen
Reviews
The Graduate (1967)
Not the film it was
There is plenty to like in The Graduate. From the masterful technical work - great camera and editing, even by the standards of cinema 35 years later - to the wonderfully ambiguous ending.
However, there's plenty to not like too. I don't personally connect with Hoffman's performance. I can't imagine how anyone ever did for that matter (odd considering how good he usually is.) Which of course would be of top-most importance in order for the film to work. I found the dialogue to very stilted too. Possibly a difference in the era it was made in, but I don't recall feeling the same way about other films of the day. The Simon & Garfunkel soundtrack didn't fire on all cylinders either. Not really S&Gs fault. The single most ineffective element of this was the repeated use of 'Scarsborough Fair' in rapid successive reprise. 'Mrs. Robinson' is used similarly, but works as it appears to have been recorded (not the version you will find on "The best of S&G" and be familiar with) not only for the film (of course, hence the specific reference) but for the specific sequence of Benjamin rushing from L.A. to Berkley to Santa Barbara. 'Scarsborough Fair' in contrast seems lazily added back to back... to back. If I'm going to hear it three times in the film, I would hope it was spread through the film. Sadly, not the case.
The thing which stood out most for me is definitely a societal difference from then to today. In the same fashion that "Taming of the Shrew" doesn't work in a modern context and seems misogynist, I found that "The Graduate" was a film wherein the main character was a stalker who was given an inappropriate and ineffective attempt at making him sympathetic. Where that once worked to the point of being Oscar worthy, it now comes across in a flaccid manner.
Das Boot (1981)
Action sans Action
U-571 opens with a scene copped directly from Das Boot. Imitation is the highest form of flattery. U-571 pales by comparison.
User review after user review comments on how this is one of the best war/anti-war films of all time. It is. Review after review comments on the chilling scene where the Germans have no choice but to watch their enemies choose between burning and drowning to death. It's a scene which will stay with me forever. Review after review comments on the end. The combined travailles and ultimate fate of the main characters makes this one of the most depressing films ever. It's worth it.
What seems to be missed is the mastery of the scene that Jonathan Mostow borrowed from Wolfgang Petersen - and what he missed.
The German U-boat at the height of victory - after sinking an Allied supply boat - is suddenly put upon by an Allied destroyer. They dive. The Allies drop charges on them. They run silent and dive further... and further beyond their safe depth limit... WAY beyond it. The boat creaks horrifically. More charges. More depth.
Petersen puts the audience in the same place as the German navy men. He deprives us of any sound save the exploding charges (and really they don't go off that often) creaking of the submarine and the whispers of the sailors (and few of them.) The men don't move. They sit in place. Where are they going to go? It's a submarine! We never see the destroyer after the U-boat dives. We know it's there.... It keeps dropping depth charges on us - I mean them.
It goes on forever. The entire sequence must be 20 minutes long or longer. And, in a sense, nothing happens. It's brilliant. The tension is amazing. It's one of the most gripping action sequences in cinema and nothing happens. There is NO action - only sound and the lack of it. The fact that it seems to go on forever only makes the suspense more intense.
By contrast, Mostow shows us too much. We see outside the boat, the charges going off. It loses something in the translation (so to speak.)
Speaking of translation... I'd like to add that while the subtitled version makes a firmer impact, this is a film (and there are few) that has a very well realised dubbed version available. Little is lost by seeing the english version.
The General (1926)
A Failure - only in it's time
Having read through the various comments on this movie, I find it interesting that no one has yet mentioned that 'The General', Keaton's pinnacle was a flop in it's day. There are various theories as to why such an excellent film bombed. Some suggest that the American Civil War was simply too close at heart at the time. Veterans were immediate family members. Others suggest that Keaton's choice of making the Hero, Johnny, a southerner was an error. (If I'm not mistaken, in the book - and true story - that the film is based on, the heroes were not Confederates, making Keaton's choice just a little pondersome.)
My pet theory is that Keaton alienated his fans by making a movie that is NOT a comedy. Funny, oh yes, but not a comedy. "Our Hospitiality" "Sherlock Jr." "Steamboat Bill Jr." are the sort of films that Keatons fans were accustomed to. Genuinely funny movies. But "The General" in an adventure. And in the context of silent film, it is an excellent adventure. (By today's standards it is structurally weak.) But it is not hysterically funny like most of the films in Keaton's main canon. His fans didn't know how to take it. And as a result it made considerably less money than his previous movies had. Keaton followed "The General" with the more conventional "College" and financially speaking returned to the world of successful filmmaking.
Today - indeed since the resurfacing of Keaton's classics (In the late 1950s?) - we see "The General" from a distance. It is with this perspective that we see that it is in fact his best film. Amongst it's accomplishments "The General" is chock full of his most ingenious business and stunt work. The only stunt which rivals anything in "The General" would be the house collapsing on him in "Steamboat Bill Jr." and there are those who will argue that the bridge collapsing under The Texas is more spectacular. I have to say that this is simply wrong. Both are heart stopping stunts. But the house collapse seriously endangered Keaton's well being. (Possibly apocryphally, all of his crew except the cameraman left the set 'cause they "couldn't stand to watch. The cameraman closed his eyes hile he cranked.) The destruction of The Texas was then the most expensive shot in film - and may still be in adjusted dollars. (Probably not.) But nobody was imperiled by the stunt. Nobody was actually in the train.