Lots of films for August.

The Truth About Charlie (2002), directed by Jonathan Demme. Trying to capture the excitement of his film Something Wild (1986), Demme sets out to remake Stanley Donen’s Charade (1963). I fear he overreaches with this glitzy and dizzying film. I say dizzying because of the angular, mobile, and downright baroque camera work, along with extreme close-ups and point of view shots from dead people. The actors here, Mark Wahlberg (in the Cary Grant role!), Thandiwe Newton (trying to be as pixie-like as Audrey Hepburn), Tim Robbins (as Walter Matthau), and the three toughs who threaten the bewildered young widow, are, I guess, okay. They have big shoes to fill, and those shoes do not fit as comfortably as we might like them to fit. For cinema buffs, Demme tries to channel the French New Wave, going so far as to have the likes of Agnes Varda, Anna Karina, and Charles Aznavour appear in cameos. We also have a few frames from Truffaut’s Shoot the Piano Player. All of this is, perhaps, earnest, but also perhaps a bit misguided. If you have seen Charade, then my advice is simply to stop there. On the other hand, maybe Mark Wahlberg in hats, including a beret, are what you are looking for.

 

Nope (2022), directed by Jordan Peele. A gigantic cowboy hat in the sky that sucks up puny humans and maybe even horses. Or is this simply a flying saucer winging its way across the California desert? In these days when a “whistleblower” tells us about aliens on earth, Nope seems pertinent. I guess it is, although more pertinent is the vacuuming of black people from history. The brother and sister who are left to run a horse ranch that caters to Hollywood films just happen to be the great great great grandchildren of the jockey, Domm, who rides the galloping horse in Eadweard Muybridge’s early attempt to capture motion on film, or at least in a series of photographs (1878). In other words, a black person is the earliest motion picture star. Who remembers the name of that jockey? A poster in the ranch house advertises the film Buck and the Preacher (1972), a sly reminder that western movies (and the west in American history) did have persons of colour, although these people have, for the most part, been sucked up into that alien machine that is Hollywood. Nope is about the movie business, about spectacle, about erasure, about seeing and not seeing. I wish I could say I enjoyed the film, but truth to tell I found it rather lumpen. The pacing is slow and the ideas somewhat ragged. The film, dare I say, ought to be better than it is. The concept is intriguing and the play on genres is attractive. Ultimately Nope is about saying no to history that refuses to tell everything there is to tell.

 

The Boy with Green Hair (1948), directed by Joseph Losey. This is Losey’s first feature film, one that Howard Hughes tried to sabotage for its pacifist message. Three years after its release, in 1951, Losey was blacklisted in Hollywood. As for the film, it is an anti-war film, but it is much more. It deals with bullying, small town mentality, xenophobia, magic, and story. Storytelling is at the heart of this movie. The frame has young Peter (Dean Stockwell) tell his story to the good Dr. Evans (Robert Ryan), and within Peter’s story we have stories of war orphans, stories of a song and dance man Gramp (Pat O’Brian), stories of Peter’s parents. As for Peter’s story, is it true? Did he really wake up one morning to find that his hair had turned green? Dr. Evans says he does not believe this story. And yet we have young Peter with a shaved head. And yet, we have clear indication that Dr. Evans is moved by the story. We have the obvious connection between Peter’s green hair and the oh so vividly green plants that his mother nurtured, and the green of the forest. Peter is, after all, “Nature Boy.” He is young and in the spring of life. He is hope for the future. His innocence puts a stay to a world of experience. This little boy is not, in the long run, lost. The ambiguity that is at the heart of his story is that necessary teasing that all good stories offer listeners, a teasing that promotes thought and empathy and understanding. After the local barber shaves Peter’s head, something he does in order that Peter no longer look different, although a boy in 1948 with shaved head looks as “different” as a boy with green hair I would think, the barber asks the assembled – Gramps, the milkman, the grocer, and so on – if they would like a lock of the green hair. No one takes him up on this offer and so the barber simply sweeps the hair away. I guess everyone wants any evidence to disappear. The green hair, however, remains, it remains in story, and story remains and remains. Story has a stubborn power to remain, and perhaps even to influence. And then again, perhaps not. We still have war, bullying, xenophobia, orphaned kids, and small minds. We also still have The Boy with Green Hair, and perhaps we are the better for having this story.

Night Train to Munich (1940), directed by Carol Reed. Often compared to Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes (1938), Night Train to Munich has the same screen writers, Sidney Gilliat and Frank Launder. The two films have a train ride in common as well as the comedic pair, Naunton Wayne and Basil Radford, and female lead Margaret Lockwood. The hero and his adversary are played by Rex Harrison and Paul von Henreid (Victor Lazlo in Casablanca) respectively. The whole thing plays out with intrigue and earnestness, but without Hitch’s comic touch or the master’s handling of suspense. Made near the beginning of the war, the film does touch on atrocities of concentration camp life (before the full horrors were known) and the ins and outs of war. Of the many films made during this troubled time, Night Train to Munich is something of a slight, if diverting, entry. Paul Henreid’s character, Karl Marsen, is effective; he is an example of someone completely captured by an ugly ideology and capable of disguising this ugliness – for a time. The film is a forerunner of Reed’s most famous film, The Third Man (1949).

And speaking of Casablanca,

Casablanca (1942), directed by Michael Curtiz. “Vultures, vultures everywhere.” This film is arguably the finest example of Hollywood film making that we have. We have seen this film umpteen times, and it never fails to please. From script to costumes to cinematography to performances to sets to soundtrack to story, this film has it all. It is collaborative film making at its best. I will say that one character uses the word “lesser” when he ought to have said “fewer,” but we can forgive this one faux pas because the whole thing is so rich and satisfying. I need not mention the leads because they are so well known, but I will mention minor characters such as Carl (S. Z. Sakall), Sascha (Leonid Kinskey), Yvonne (Madeleine Lebeau), and the Pickpocket (Curt Bois). These performers sparkle, as does the whole cast. The film has humour, music, tension, melodrama, and even a bit of violence. “What nationality are you?” “I’m a drunkard.” Louis asks Rick why he came to Casablanca, and Rick replies that he came for the waters. “But we are in the desert,” Louis notes. Rick’s response: “I was misinformed.” There is so much to admire in this film that I have no doubt we will watch it again before too long. Watching it for the first time, one knows that this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.