The Deep Focus

Wow. Double wow. Thrice wow. La La Land, The Handmaiden, and now Dunkirk, the third great film I’ve seen at the cinema this year (and I’ve seen a lot). Great with a capital G. This is like the summation of all Christopher Nolan’s films to date, combining both style and substance, the epic and the intimate. And the SOUND, the sound is astonishing (I saw it at the IMAX), not just the sounds of war but also Hans Zimmer’s score which is relentless and acts as counterpoint to the images. My overall impression of the film is its impressionism (couldn’t resist that), a collage of sights and sounds with cross-cutting between different locations and continuing Nolan’s interest in playing with time. It doesn’t have the visceral realism of Saving Private Ryan but instead it has a heightened intensity and kind of hyper-realism. This is Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece so far, the film in which he reaches the pantheon of great film-makers.

Anf finally, it’s so good to see a film that doesn’t go on too long (it’s under two hours), much like the brevity of my review.

Why is that when you see people going to bed at night in a film, that after they put their bedside light out there is often still a faint patch of light over them which means we can still see them? Surely there should be complete darkness? I mean, when I put the light out at night out I never see any random patches of light……..

So having reviewed Baby Driver, this got me thinking about my favourite cool scenes in films and this scene from Godard’s Bande a Part immediately sprung to mind. I never tire of watching it:

https://youtu.be/Qz0ZdVZrw9Y

….before I was interrupted. (I’ve had connection problems and hence no posts for too long.) So now I’m back and raring to go.

This film is so C-O-O-O-O-O-L. This film is so cool it could make The Fonz look square. It’s so cool it could freeze liquid nitrogen instantly. It’s so cool we need to invent a new word that is even cooler than cool. It’s a stylish, brilliantly crafted slice of pure cinematic adrenaline. I loved it. It’s even got a good performance from Kevin Spacey (whatever happened to him)? Probably his best performance since that film he was in about twenty years ago about a mid-life crisis whose name I can’t remember and I can’t be bothered looking it up on IMDB. I always have a soft-spot for a good car chase film, and this has them in spades. Bullitt, The French Connection, The Driver, Ronin and now Baby Driver can be added to the list of great car chase films. It’s like all those films rolled into one but with a better soundtrack.

I think this is Edgar Wright’s best film to date, and it is undoubtedly the must-see action film of the year.

Oh, one more thing – it’s cool.

So this week I saw Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin (1925) at the cinema for the first time, indeed the first time at all for at least 20 years. I don’t remember it making much of an impression on me the first time. This time was different. If you were to choose a film that conveyed the power and magic of cinema, this is as good a choice as any. I was stunned. I didn’t remember it being like this! And now I know why. When I first saw it, it would have been the pre-restored version. And the pre-restored version had missing scenes, missing intertitles and different music. The original film had music specifically written for the film by the German Edmund Meisel, and it was done under Eisenstein’s supervision. Somewhere along the line the Russian government, thinking that music written by a German on a Russian film was “unpatriotic”, imposed a Shostakovich score onto the film. A score that had nothing to do with the film itself but was merely extracted from his music.

But now I was seeing it the way Eisenstein intended it to be seen. And what a difference! The whole Odessa steps sequence was astonishing in its power, with editing used to maximum effect. I was surprised at how violent it was too, was this really made in 1925? It was almost visceral. (The scene with the pram tumbling down the stairs has been imitated several times, most famously by De Palma in The Untouchables). And the final sequence of the film, with the battleships converging and the music building up in perfect synchronicity with the cross-cutting images, was a textbook example of how to build tension.

In fact the film was so good, it made me want to start a revolution…….if that’s not a measure of the film’s success, I don’t know what is.

NB Top ten favourite new films are listed in a different colour font. Films I consider to be masterpieces have the letter M written after the title in red.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens

The Hateful Eight

The Gold Rush (1925)

The Martian

The Revenant M

The Assassin (China/Taiwan)

Room

Way Out West (1937) M

Spotlight

The Boxer From Shantung (Hong Kong) (1972)

The Survivalist

Bone Tomahawk

The Killer Constable (Hong Kong) (1980)

Wake in Fright (Australia) (1971)

Police Story (Hong Kong) (1985)

The Big Short

Solaris (Russia) (1972)

Goodnight Mommy (Austria)

Hitchcock/Truffaut (Documentary)

Hail, Caesar!

The Witch

Too Many Ways To Be No.1 (Hong Kong)

Anomalisa (Animation)

Beast Stalker (Hong Kong) (2008)

Alphaville (France) (1965)

High-Rise

Stalker (Russia) (1979) M

The Club (Chile)

That Demon Within (Hong Kong)

Ran (Japan) (1985) M

Victoria (Germany)

La Jetee/Sans Soleil (Documentary) (France) (1962/1983)

Midnight Special

The Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia)

The Mansion of Madness (Mexico) (1973)

The Secret in their Eyes (Argentina) (2009)

Shooting Stars (1927)

To Kill a Man (Chile)

Deephan (France)

Arabian Nights Vol 1: The Restless One (Portugal)

Son of Saul (Hungary) M

Arabian Nights Vol 2: The Desolate One (Portugal)

Arabian Nights Vol 3: The Enchanted One (Portugal)

Johnny Guitar (1954)

Evolution (France)

Green Room

Ivan’s Childhood (Russia) (1966)

Love and Friendship M

Out 1 (France) (1971)

Andrei Rublev (Russia) (1966) M

Mirror (Russia) (1975) M

Macbeth (1971) (NB Polanski)

Tale of Tales

Cemetery of Splendour (Thailand)

Remainder

Suburra (Italy)

Fear Eats the Soul (Germany) (1974)

Men and Chicken (Denmark)

The Man in the White Suit (1951)

Princess Mononoke (Japan) (Animation)

Barry Lyndon (1975)

The General (1927) M

The Confession: Living the War On Terror (Documentary)

The Shallows

The Passenger (Italy) (1975)

The Tin Drum (Germany) (1979)

Grave of the Fireflies (Japan) (1988) (Animation)

Behemoth (China) (Documentary)

Cosmos (France)

The Childhood of a Leader

Julieta (Spain)

Tickled (Documentary)

Things to Come (France)

Don’t Breath

El Sur (Spain) (1983)

The Clan (Argentina)

Call of Heroes (China)

Deep Water (France) (1981)

Hell and High Water

Daisies (Czech) (1966)

The Girl With All the Gifts

Under The Shadow (Iran)

Akira (Japan) (1988) (Animation) M

Aloys (Switzerland)

Swiss Army Man

I, Daniel Blake

Prevenge

Train To Busan (Korea)

The Keep (1983)

Battling Butler (1927)

Nocturnal Animals

Yella (Germany (2007)

Napoleon (France) (1927) M

On The Silver Globe (Poland) (1988)

Arrival

Creepy (Japan)

Paterson

Your Name (Japan) (Animation)

NB Top ten favourite new films are listed in a different colour font. Films I consider to be masterpieces have the letter M written after the title in red.

Flags of our Fathers

Apocalypto

Babel

The Last King of Scotland

Little Children

Notes on a Scandal

Los Olvidados (Spain) (1950)

Belle de Jour (France) (1967) M

The Science of Sleep

Letters From Iwo Jima

Inland Empire

Would You Kill a Child? (Spain) (1976)

Catch a Fire

Days of Glory (France)

Paths of Glory (1957) M

The Lives of Others (Germany)

Little Miss Sunshine

Half Nelson

Curse of the Golden Flower (China)

Night of the Sunflowers (Spain)

28 Weeks Later

Zodiac

Battle of Algiers (Italy) (1966) M

McCabe and Mrs Miller (1971)

Tell No One (France)

The War on Democracy (Documentary)

The Seventh Seal (Sweden) (1957) M

Taking Liberties (Documentary)

Shut Up and Sing (Documentary)

The Bourne Ultimatum

Two Days in Paris

Knocked Up

Atonement

The Serpent (France)

Shoot ‘Em Up

Death Proof

The Counterfeiters (Germany)

The Kingdom

Mr Brooks

Eastern Promises

30 Days of Night

The Band’s Visit

Rescue Dawn

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford M

Into The Wild

Blame it on Fidel (France)

The Killing of John Lennon

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) M

In Memory of Me (Italy)

I have now added the latest guest post, just click on Guest Reviews at the top right of the page. This overview is written by an expert on the Carry On films (this blog is nothing if not eclectic!)

I’ve only ever left a theatrical performance before its conclusion once, just once. Such is my hope that things must improve that I’ll sit through anything to the bitter end, often just so I have the complete right to complain about the experience afterwards. How else can you really be sure of the calibre of the dross? But as the curtain fell for the intermission of Jim Dale’s final night of his one-man show, ‘Just Jim Dale’, I leaned over to my wife and whispered “we’re not coming back for the second half” and we left. Why? Because that night Jim Dale revealed to me something I wasn’t expecting, that he has no talent. His music hall song and dance, his japes and funny stories, made me die a little. I had to get out of there, before he stole the magic of Carry On from me forever.
There can’t be many film makers that have created a genre, a genre that only they are able to continue. But that’s what Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas started when they produced the first of what would become a series of 31 Carry On feature films for cinema. And that’s just the ones that carry the official name. Between 1958 and 1992, a hectic filming schedule would normally see 2 films released a year for an audience that, during its heyday, couldn’t get enough of them. Carry On conjures up images of bikini clad Babs, Egyptian tomfoolery, and sexual exploitation. It’s only possible to describe them in one way, by the name of their genre: Carry On.
Most are drawn to the more elaborate historical features they produced, which are certainly impressive, especially considering the incredibly tight budgets they were made under. For me one of the most impressive period outings happens to also be the greatest Western of all time, Carry on Cowboy. Which has all the required tropes, melted down and combined with constant Carry On wit to produce 93 minutes of superb cinema. All filmed in Surrey and Buckinghamshire, so no spaghetti on this western. Cowboy is placed at what could be argued the second slot in the run of truly iconic Carry On, starting with Carry On Cleo and ending with Carry On Behind. That’s a run of 18 consecutive films showcasing the very best of British cinema. Well, maybe not Carry on Henry, or …Girls. Though …Girls does have the strange pull of having all of Valerie Leon’s lines dubbed over by June Whitfield, who also stars in the same film. Whitfield doesn’t alter her voice in any way so it’s like she’s talking to herself at times, albeit via a bit of body snatching. The DVD commentary doesn’t help explain matters as Whitfield herself claims to not remember dubbing over the actress.
Personally, I find myself drawn to the contemporary, ‘present day’\1970’s features more than the historical ones, as they appeal to the 70’s sitcom style of living that I most envy. Who wouldn’t want to live in the same street as Sid (James) or Bernie (Bernard Bresslaw)? Setting off on a roadtrip to find that elusive nudist campsite, or going on a work’s away day to the seaside? My favourite in the whole series, …Abroad is the last outing for the ultimate team of James, Bresslaw, Babs Windsor, Joan Simms, Hattie Jacques, Kenneth Williams, Kenneth Connor, and Charles Hawtrey. The dream team. Hawtrey’s drinking had become such a problem that he’s clearly pissed in several scenes, and the producers called time on him, recasting James Logan in his role in the next outing, …Girls. Carry On Abroad features some of the best in farce, where not only do the rooms of their hotel in the Spanish resort of Els Bels all have shared bathrooms, there’s a chronic understaffing problem and the builders haven’t even completed the roof yet. Comedy gold ensues. Like …Cowboy, this film also takes a record, in this case for the best one liner in cinema when Sid is introducing his wife to their fellow holiday makers: “This is the wife… don’t laugh.”
Even when the classic Carry On mould is changed, removing James, Bresslaw, Jacques or Windsor, the magic is still there and garners amazing results, like we see in …Behind. The Carry On formula comes from the creators, rather than the players, and this alone is enough explanation as to why Jim Dale’s one-man show could be so woeful, when he has achieved such greatness in his Carry On past. Take away the formula, and Dale falls flat on his face, when he should really be riding a hospital bed down a staircase.
It could be argued that Carry On just boils down to the smut and misogyny of a bygone era, full of the hateful male chauvinist bravado that took decades to be eroded and washed away. And yes, marriages are supposedly saved through the statutory rape of school girls (see Terry and June in …Camping), and partners fall back in love with each other because their men have been grooming underage school girls (see Sid and Bernie in, yes, …Camping again), and yes, there may be a dodgy scene where a girl is repeatedly raped while traveling across the desert (See …Follow that Camel). But that’s just the British way, laughter created in the face of the absurd.  By R. Frood