Archive for the ‘British Film’ Category

The 26th of May is something of a red-letter day in the DVD release calendar. Whether this is because of a conjunction of the planets in the far-distant heavens or some sinister international conspiracy of art-house DVD labels, I don’t know. But whatever the reason, there’s a whole bunch of films released that day which are surely of interest to the discerning sort of person who shops at MovieMail.

For instance, Masters of Cinema release Akasen Chitai + Yokihi, their final double bill of late-period Mizoguchi films (any chance of some early ones, gents?) The BFI drop four films. First, the long-awaited (by me, at least) release of A Cottage on Dartmoor. Then there’s A Walk With Love and Death, a John Huston project rescued from limbo and happily restored to polite society.

You can – and frankly should – also get your hands on Lubitsch’s final masterpiece, the droll delight that is Cluny Brown. And then there’s another long-awaited (by me etc etc) British film, Radio On. Last year’s Palme d’Or winner 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days – harrowing, outstanding – is made available by the good folk at Artificial Eye, while Tartan give us Chan-Wook Park’s I’m a Cyborg (But That’s OK.) And I haven’t mentioned collections gathering work by Paul Verhoeven and Andrzej Wajda. Nor things like Bandit Queen. Phew!

If that were everything, it would be a good week indeed. But there’s more. Right at the bottom of the page is what might be the pick of the litter: They Made Me A Fugitive. Not, perhaps, the most celebrated title but one that really does deserve to be better know. Even if it were not a good film (which, incidentally, it is), it would be of interest because it’s directed by Alberto Cavalcanti.

As the name might suggest, Cavalcanti wasn’t from round these parts. Born in Brazil, he arrived in Blighty after a spell in France working with the likes of Renoir. He threw his lot in with the documentary movement – he supervised Night Mail – before being headhunted by Ealing Studios to work for them. His most widely seen work is Dead of Night – he handled the linking scenes and the best story (Michael Redgrave and his dummy) but it’s Went the Day Well that is the masterpiece.

I included Went The Day Well on my ‘alternative’ list of best British films last year but frankly, it deserves to be hovering near the more orthodox accounts of our national cinema too. (Incidentally, I wanted to include Radio On on that list but it wasn’t available on DVD at the time of writing. Now that it is, it can take the place of The Offence.) It’s an astoundingly brutal film considering it’s supposed to be a wartime morale booster and it made me a Cavalcanti devotee.

They Made Me a Fugitive isn’t quite as brutal, or rather, its brutality manifests itself in different ways. It doesn’t have the same inexorable forward momentum as Went The Day Well; the pace is just a little more relaxed. But more even than its predecessor, it has contempt for the politeness of British cinema and little hypocrisies of society. It’s an unflinching film: women are beaten, drugs are smuggled (at least I assume it’s drugs, not actually sherbet, as the gang-leader claims). The police aren’t infallible.

And for a film made in 1947, it offers a very unflattering portrait of the home-coming heroes. Trevor Howard is the titular ‘Me’: Clem Morgan, ex-RAF, ex-POW and finding it hard to adjust to life on civvie street. He drinks too much; he misses the excitement – so he gets involved with the titular ‘They’: some nasty black-marketeers.

But Clem isn’t totally without scruple, which rubs the headman Narcy (Griffith Jones) up the wrong way. Narcy’s also taken a shine to Clem’s lady-friend, so when a copper gets killed during one of their raids, Narcy frames Clem and lets him face the music – breaking rocks on Dartmoor – leaving Narcy free to make his moves. Naturally Clem escapes, and revenge is high on the agenda.

What’s most remarkable about They Made Me A Fugitive is just how close it is to the contemporary American crime films that would subsequently become known as Film Noir. We often talk of British Noir – Brighton Rock, Odd Man Out and the like – but while they share certain common elements with the American films, their concerns are ultimately different. They Made Me A Fugitive is the real thing, something that’s in sympathy with the aims and ambitions of the very best Noir. It could have been produced by RKO or Monogram.

Except, had it been made in America, I dare say the production code might have had a few suggestions to make about the film. I can’t imagine they’d be too happy about the grim vignette in which Clem shelters with a woman who begs him to kill her alcoholic husband. And they’d have probably exploded when they saw the conclusion, which openly laughs at the conventions of the happy ending. To say more is to spoil it but it’s safe to say that you won’t predict the ultimate resolution.

As an outsider, Cavalcanti saw a different Britain than the natives. Coming from the documentary tradition, he was interested in telling the truth as he saw it. This is a very squalid Britain, sordid and grim. Indeed, I can’t think of another film from that era – or even for another a couple of decades – that showed this country in such a bad light; it paints a very different portrait of austerity Britain than we’re used to.

It’s a tough picture, pretty much the diametric opposite of the film that made Trevor Howard’s name, Brief Encounter. It’s enough to confirm Cavalcanti as a major filmmaker, one deserving of much more attention than he currently receives. I’ve seen very little of his work (which spanned three continents, at least) but even if the rest is bobbins, he made at least two bona-fide masterpieces.

I don’t doubt that there’ll be a shed load of titles in your shopping basket on May 26th but if you’ve got room for one more, then it’s only £7.99. It’s not much to see a master at work.

I was recently tasked with reviewing a new box set which gathers up the thrillers Alfred Hitchcock made in the 1930s, and which also throws in a few of his silents for good measure. This wasn’t difficult, as I’m extremely fond of this period in the master’s career. He would make objectively ‘better’ films but personally, I’ll take the ‘minor’ Young and Innocent or even the inexplicably reviled Jamaica Inn over the ‘masterpiece’ Shadow of a Doubt or the inexplicably praised Strangers on a Train any day of the week.

I like to think that, after God knows how long watching and considering Hitchcock, I have a fair understanding of his work: the motifs and mannerisms that he liked and the sorts of themes he liked to explore. I can survey his entire career from my digital vantage point, spotting similarities between The Pleasure Garden (his first film, an Anglo-German production he made in Germany in 1926, where he was exposed to the expressionist touches that significantly coloured his own conception of cinema) and Family Plot (his last, made in 1976).

And yet, I wonder if this bird-eye view explains the director as well as it might. Looked at like this, it flattens the career out, making it seem smoother than it undoubtedly was. A few inches separates The Pleasure Garden from Family Plot on my shelves but fifty years separated their creation: a lot remained constant but an awful lot more changed.

A few years ago, I watched Hitchcock’s films from the original The Man Who Knew Too Much to The Lady Vanishes in sequence. It wasn’t planned, it just worked out that way and it was a fascinating experience. You get a much better sense of the director’s personality seeing them that way, watching him experimenting, developing ideas and learning from his mistakes.

Most of all, watching them in sequence showed me how they related to the era in which they were made. With the exception of Young and Innocent, the films from The Man… to The Lady… concern nefarious ‘foreign powers’ threatening British interests. This element gets more urgent as the films progress and when you think of what else was happening at that time, you realise why. Contemporary audiences would surely assume any sneaky ‘foreign power’ with worrying military objectives had a swastika on its flag.

The Lady Vanishes, as has been noted elsewhere, is especially overt, a parable warning against appeasement. Indeed, one of its best jokes assumes audiences came early to watch the newsreel; British cinema’s greatest double act, Messrs Charters and Caldicott, are introduced worrying about England and the threat she faces … not of imminent war, of course, but something far more important – defeat in the cricket.

Of course, one of the measures of a great film (or any work of art, for that matter) is that it works irrespective of context. I think it’s more interesting as a piece of social history. Sometimes, a film can capture a feeling you won’t find in history books concerned with facts.

Consider Powell & Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (AMOLAD). It’s a beautiful film, a glorious fantasy. But this lush Technicolor dream preserves something of the popular mood of its time. ‘Heaven’ is a monochrome place, staffed with bureaucrats and contemptuous of individuals; although it’s been largely forgotten today, that was how many saw Britain under Atlee, as it struggled to build the Heaven of Socialism (see also: A Private Function).

We don’t need to know any of this stuff, any more than we need to know the circumstances that lead Shakespeare to write Macbeth (which is almost as good as AMOLAD.) But since we try to restore movies as closely to their original versions, why don’t we sometimes try to reconstruct how audiences might have approached it? It might help us find new ways of seeing.

After all, it doesn’t make AMOLAD any less glorious or diminish The Lady Vanishes if we know this stuff: the little rascals will always find new ways to delight you. They haven’t let me down yet.

A month or so back, appalled by the profoundly conservative ‘Summer of British Film’, I wrote a piece championing the films that had slipped through the cracks: British masterpieces that were just as good as (and in some cases better than) the establishment history. You’ll find it here.

It climaxed with a rousing exhortation to readers to respond with their own favourites. It seems only fair that I respond to those of you who took me at my word. As you’d expect from the MovieMail customer, the responses are intelligent, informed and well argued. Although I was disappointed that there weren’t any outraged Dam Busters fans braying for my scalp or calling my patriotism into question.

Anyway, to the results. There obviously was a little confusion: I quite agree with those writers who said that The Lady Vanishes, Peeping Tom and Listen To Britain are deeply wonderful films. And we’re in good company, since the people who compiled the various lists I was reacting against included all three. That’s why I didn’t feature them.

For the most part, however, the responses were just what I wanted. I’ve never seen It Always Rains on Sunday but it was a popular recommendation and, after a brief consultation with my elderly copy of Halliwell’s Film Guide, I realise it’s imperative I catch up with it as soon as possible, not least because it’s directed by Robert Hamer – a great director in anyone’s language.

I’ll also keep an eye out for three films with animal related titles: The Goose Steps Out (with Will Hay), Bronco Bullfrog and Tawny Pipit. I’ve not heard of any of them, so I don’t know what to expect but – hey – I trust your judgement.

A couple of people nominated films by the great Cavalcanti: Dead of Night and They Made Me a Fugitive (probably the film I most want to see). Does this mean a Cavalcanti revival is on the cards? Shall we get a petition up to demand a Cavalcanti season at the NFT? I was also pleased to see Val Guest getting a lot of love, with Jigsaw copping a couple of mentions. He’s one of those directors who deserves to be better known. Not an auteur, perhaps, but a craftsman who made some solid films: even The Boys in Blue is better than any film featuring Cannon and Ball has any right to be.

There were a couple of films I desperately wanted to include on the original list but couldn’t because they weren’t available, so I’ll mention them here. Chiefly, Deep End, which was one of the many excellent suggestions by Frank Flood. Man, that’s some kind of masterpiece and its absence from DVD is both baffling and annoying. I also wanted to included Death Line (which turns out to be on DVD after all). If you haven’t seen it and have a strong-ish stomach, get it now. Both of these are great movies that show how cosmetic ‘swinging London’ really was, revelling in the filth and the decay. Significantly, both were directed by foreign-born directors.

A thank you to all who joined in, especially to Lawrence Freiesleben, who instantly gets into my good books by mentioning Fritz Lang’s Moonfleet (yeah, I know it’s not British but I think we’ve already established I have a fairly elastic interpretation of ‘rules’), which is one of my faves. So is Night of the Demon, come to that. Oh, and A Canterbury Tale, which I love. I hope you enjoy House of Whipcord.

As I mentioned in the original article, I love British film and I’m upset to see it served so badly by its official guardians. I want to keep this debate alive in future posts, so keep those neglected gems coming and let’s show what British cinema is really made of…

Given that relations between Britain and Russia hover somewhere distantly below freezing point at the moment, I wonder how the Russians received Eastern Promises. It’s fair to say that this (ostensibly British) thriller doesn’t show its Russian villains in an entirely positive light. I wouldn’t want to be the projectionist who shows it to Vladimir Putin. No doubt the Foreign Office is praying he prefers to unwind from a hard day imposing his iron will on the people with a nice musical.

But while the diplomats might be appalled, the more humble filmgoer will be thrilled. Eastern Promises – newly arrived on DVD – is an authentically great film. The plot is simple: a young girl dies during childbirth. Her midwife, Anna, (Naomi Watts) finds her diary, written in Russian, and wants to know more. The trail takes Anna to the Trans-Siberia restaurant which, although she doesn’t realise it yet, is a front for an odious Russian gangster Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl), his odious son Kirrill (Vincent Cassel) and their factotum Nikolai (Viggo Mortenson). Peril ensues.

What makes the film so interesting is that it represents a confrontation between two different aesthetics of filmmaking. It was written by Steve Knight; he’s a social-realist. He wrote the estimable Dirty Pretty Things, a concerned film that sought to illuminate the lives of illegal immigrants in London. Eastern Promises could be said to spring from similar motives, to understand the stories behind the headlines, to look at who the ‘new Britons’ are.

But the film was directed by David Cronenberg. He’s a surrealist and the good, honest virtues of social realism aren’t what get him going. He’s interested in the hermetic world of the Russian gangster, in codes of behaviour, in tattoos. He’s not terribly interested in plot – indeed that seems to disappear altogether in the second half – so much as what it enables him to explore.

The tension between these two visions drives the film. I consider myself lucky that I don’t know how accurate a depiction of Russian gangsterdom Eastern Promises but I’m guessing Knight did his research and the film touches on pertinent issues such as sex trafficking (see also: Lilya 4-Ever). Only, Cronenberg is less interested in the victims of this crime than he is in the sexuality of the animals that enslave them.

The results are arguably better than if either side had been allowed to go it alone. Knight’s vision stimulates Cronenberg’s imagination; Cronenberg’s oblique approach brings a texture to the material a more straightforward reading might have missed. This isn’t a London we’re used to seeing on screen and yet to me, it was a more truthful portrait because of that.

Of course, foreign directors are often the best placed to show the natives what Britain is really like. What Eastern Promises reminded me of most was the work of Jerzy Skolimowski, especially his film Deep End which showed the flip-side of Swinging London. Upon checking the cast list at the end of the film, I got a happy surprise – Skolimowski is credited as actor. He plays Anna’s Russian uncle and it would be nice to think the casting was an act of homage.

The film also benefits immeasurably from Viggo Mortenson. It’s a tremendously brave performance and not simply because of the memorable steam bath scene, where he fights two killers in the buff. He’s sufficiently confident in the script, his director and his own abilities to play a very shadowy, ambiguous character whose motives are resolved late in the day and who leaves the film on an oblique note.

Of course, we mustn’t overlook the memorable steam bath scene, where he fights two killers in the buff. It’s the finest fight in many a year and looks authentically painful: staged on a hard, slippery floor with no padding for the lead actor. Unplanned guest appearances by ‘little Viggo’ were surely the least of his worries.

What with this and A History of Violence, Cronenberg and Mortenson are shaping up to be the most interesting director-star team in contemporary cinema. I confess I wasn’t keen on A History of Violence. It had its merits but it was schematic and perhaps too academic. Eastern Promises is a looser film, less interested in testing a thesis than in lifting up some rocks and studying the discoveries, no matter how vile. The Kremlin might not like it but the results are compelling