Man of the West - 1958

At this point, director Anthony Mann apparently had no more fucks to give re: Western tropes, stories, themes or outcomes. He cared only about his obsessions and obsessing over them. Joining him in negative-fucksland is Gary Cooper, playing the least heroic, most embittered hero of his career.

Welcome to Mann's most displaced picture- the one in which ostensive narrative content has the least possible connection to what's really happening onscreen. Given that Mann has long been the champion of emphasizing subtext over text, this one is truly out there.

F'rinstance, Cooper beats the living shit outta Jack Lord, in vengeance for coming onto Julie London - wtf is Julie London doing here? - in a ferocious, yes obsessive, grapple. When Lord is a bloody pulp, Cooper, shouting all the while, makes Lord his punk by tearing off all his clothes, one obsessive item at a time. We don't find out what Cooper intends to do with naked Lord because scenery-devourer Lee J. Cobb shoots Lord - his son.

Quite arresting Mann tracking shots appear now and then to remind viewers of the day they're not home watching the TV, but are in fact in a movie theatre admiring big-ass, widescreen Cinemascope. Otherwise, Mann vests in Boetticher epic exteriors and what would become Leone mega-hella-closeups. 

Much unbearable overacting in the Mann mode, but savoring and attempting to suss what each scene is really about will keep you glued to the screen.

With a trail of bodies - all of relatives or adopted relatives - to his credit, Cooper and London ride off into the sunset. But wait! Cooper has told the besotted London he has a wife and kids back in whatever Western shithole his embittered ass traveled forth from.

London takes his hand, tells him she never felt love this like this - consummated with not even a kiss, mind you - and that, even though she can never have him, that love is perfect and all she needs.

And that's the end/climax of the picture!

So, Mann's telling you that all cowboy movie violence is the manifestation of unaddressed or brutally, punitively suppressed queer desire. I mean, who can argue? But fuck Douglas Sirk and all his subtle implications. Mann makes it plain as plain...

Rolling Thunder - 1977

Immersed in Tarantino's Cinema Speculation, and like everything he's done since KILL BILL No. 2, it's mostly self-congratulation, needs to be cut by 35% and features moments of extraordinary perception, insight and humor.

His chapter-long rave about ROLLING THUNDER reminded me how much I liked it when I saw it sometime last century. Had to order a Region 2 DVD - couldn't find it streaming anywhere.

You will find this hard to believe, I know, but Tarantino understates wildly (for once in his life); ROLLING THUNDER is a masterpiece.

As T noted, Schrader's monosyllabic screenplay perfectly meshes with director John Flynn's minimal style. Flynn could really stage a shoot-out and always used them to further express character, as only the best action directors can. The performances are pitch-perfect and vested in the physical, since nobody says much.

Tommy Lee Jones, catatonic for most of the story, transforms into a balletic athlete when he gets to kill people. Linda Haynes, as Tarantino writes, is perfect in tone and body language; she's the true star. Maybe Haynes was too convincing as a redneck waitress to get cast in other roles; sadly, she was only in 14 films.

And this is Devane's least insufferable acting ever. He actually turns it down from 11. For once.

Each scene, each word of dialogue, leads to the inevitable finale. Such a pleasure to watch a film so vested in structure, cutting, pace, rhythm and cheap thrills.

One example: Devane tells Jones he found the men he's been hunting. He doesn't have to say it out loud, but he wants Jones to help him kill them. Jones says: "I'll get my gear." That's it.

Today, fucking Antone Fuqua or his equivalent would hold a long closeup on Jones as his face changed into hardened resolve and after three more beats than necessary, Jones would deliver the line like he was reciting Homer. In Flynn's version, Jones speaks with his back to the camera! And it slays.

Docked half a star for the unbearable dumbass cornpone song played over the opening and closing credits. I can't fathom whom the songwriter had to be fucking to get his complete violation of tone and gestalt tacked onto the film.

The Sound of Fury/Try and Get Me! - 1950

About as true, bleak and prescient as 72 year-old pulp could possibly be regarding today's cultural/political climate. I mean, I thought the last act was too harsh, enraged and perfectly depicted - using a horde of raving amateurs who now look all too familiar - to bear when I first saw it.

Now - post Jan 6 - it's a terrifying prophecy.

Based on the true story of two prisoners - both Black – taken by a mob from a small-town California jail and lynched, this McCarthy era fuck you to any and all notions of peaceable US community got the director blacklisted, even though he shifted the race of the hanged men to white.

The first 3/4 is a heartfelt, subtle, slow-building portrait of the pure evil of the American class system, the indignities proles suffer and the high and mighty arrogance of the cultured class. Here that class incarnates in a '50's version of Fox News, an empty suit spouting empty moralities that inspire the lynchings. The last quarter is anarchy unchained, as the white American mob invades a government space for murder.

Shot on a dime, it showcases simple back-screen projection and every now and then, a bravura composition that drives home the film's themes. The cinema-verite meets Film Noir of the extended riot sequence is pure visual genius.

This is some dark shit. I could barely finish it last night and then zapped all around seeking some antidote. Guess what? Ain't none, and that ain't no metaphor.

Stars At Noon - 2022

I didn't know Claire Denis directed this. I might have been less open to it going in. I'm glad I didn't know.

The first act builds so slowly - as Deni's usually do – though Qualley's constant incandescent nakedness provided a distraction. 

Hard to say whether Denis is exploiting Qualley, or, like the rest of us, in awe of her unnaturally natural beauty, innate glamour and artistic fearlessness. Qualley has the face of silent-era star, with bottomless emotion pouring out of her eyes and 1000 x more energy than she knows what do to with. When Qualley learns to modulate, that is, you know, act, there's no telling what she can do.

For now, I guess Qualley'll just have to settle for being a true movie star, one you cannot stop staring at. I can so see her in an early Godard film, and there is no higher praise.

Haven't enjoyed a Denis film this century. Her slow pacing and ponderous cutting worked against her in more pretentious or less well written pictures. This is her best, and, I think, the best of 2022.

Denis gives no shits about "backstory" or "character building" or "exposition" or even "context." The story unfolds entirely through the characters and everything that happens springs from their natures. Layered atop the characters is the terrifying political situation, which is presented with telling indirectness and lack of explanation. The plot explains nothing, but leaves of plenty to infer, as in Denis Johnson's best books or, even better, Robert Stone's. This is like the best novel Stone never wrote and you can feel his influence on Johnson.

From what seems a rambling beginning, the film's power builds and builds and Denis applies all her craft to staying out of her own way as she never has.

Marked Eyes - 1964

Robert Hossein is a pulp genius and master stylist. He makes more from less than any director I can think of. His simple, evocative camera movements align with his unpredictable, powerful editing to generate suspense, tension, arousal - lotta shockingly hot stuff for the era, as usual in his pictures - compassion and ever-deeper involvement in the story.

This is Hossein's most direct narrative. It seems to be about exactly what plot says it is, which is almost weird, given the multi-layeredness of his other pictures. And it's no less hypnotic for that.

This is also his most Noir Noir. BLONDE IN A WHITE CAR is so weird and singular I'm not sure it's a Noir at all. This features not one but two femmes fatale. The young, seemingly innocent one in her little girl pajamas casually walking around a filthy basement bashing at everything with a razo-sharp hatchet while blithely blackmailing her victim is peak Hossein.

Hossein co-stars with Michéle Morgan, and treats her austere, enigmatic face and balletic grace - wait til you see her glide through the forest in her chic city shoes – as Antonioni treats Monica Vitti: an infinite, glamorous, cinematic mystery.

Hossein's genius is something of a mystery, too. He's a pure cinematician working with the most low-brow, pulp material that he turns into poetry. His father's (!) beautiful, lyrical score works in exact opposition to the grit of the story, thus raising even more contradictory emotions.