Camille Paglia’s The Birds: A Hitchcock Masterpiece

In her penetrating analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds (1963), Camille Paglia interprets the film as a masterpiece of modern myth—a work that exposes the primal forces lurking beneath civilized life. She argues that The Birds transcends mere suspense or allegory; it is a symbolic meditation on nature, sexuality, and apocalypse.

Paglia situates the film within Hitchcock’s larger vision of erotic tension and moral ambiguity, but she sees The Birds as his most metaphysical creation. Nature, in her reading, is not benevolent but pagan and amoral—a vast, unconscious power that erupts into human order. The sudden avian attacks represent the collapse of rationality before the mystery and terror of the natural world.

At the film’s center is Melanie Daniels, played by Tippi Hedren, whom Paglia reads as a glamorous pagan goddess—stylish, autonomous, and emotionally opaque. Her arrival in the coastal town of Bodega Bay disturbs the fragile equilibrium of its repressed inhabitants. Paglia likens Melanie’s beauty and sexual independence to the disruptive archetypes of myth—figures like Circe or Lilith—whose presence awakens chaos.

The escalating bird assaults, then, symbolize both ecological revenge and erotic punishment: nature striking back against the human attempt to control it. Paglia reads the film’s open ending—not with moral closure but with dread-filled silence—as a modernist gesture of cosmic humility.

There are so many layers to the story including the manner in which Hitchcock seamlessly inserts various interpretations of the meaning of this avian chaos. In one scene Mrs. Bundy, an elderly ornithologist, takes a contrarian stance, saying, "Birds have been on this planet, Miss Daniels, since Archaeopteryx; a hundred and forty million years ago. Doesn't it seem odd that they'd wait all that time to start a - a war against humanity?"

Well, yes, it does seem odd, but can someone else explain what is happening? Another character tells everyone in the diner that it's the end of the world. Considering that there are more than 100 billion birds and only a few billion humans, this would not be a war many of us would be eager to fight.

Painting by the author

Ultimately, Paglia regards The Birds as a work of religious power, though without theology—a revelation of the pagan sublime. Hitchcock, she suggests, understood that terror and beauty spring from the same source, and that civilization rests upon forces it can neither master nor fully understand.

In Paglia’s reading, The Birds becomes not just a thriller, but a modern myth of nature’s return—a confrontation with the ancient gods we thought we’d outgrown. 

Paglia's book belongs to a series of BFI Film Classics. Whereas most of this 110-page volume is a scene by scene account of the film, nearly every observation contains revelations of references to previous Hitchcock films, Hollywood history, mythology and literature. 

If interested, the entirety can be found online here, though I myself felt it compelling enough to purchase it for my library. (Belated birthday present.) 

Once you've read the book, I'm certain you will be compelled to see the movie again as I was.  

URL for the online version of this book: https://api.pageplace.de/preview/DT0400.9781838719388_A39237384/preview-9781838719388_A39237384.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Throwback Thursday: Rediscovering Tragic Film

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 24 MARCH 2011

One of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche's early works was called The Birth of Tragedy. Taking his cues from classical Greek tragedy, he presented modern (19th century) readers with the idea that tragedy is "an art form that transcends the pessimism and nihilism of a fundamentally meaningless world."* Spectators, by looking deeply into the depths of human sorrow, were affirmed in their own existence, and thus could see themselves not simply as petty peons in a pointless existence but as fuller, more complex persons.

 

Many there are who misunderstand tragedy in the arts. Hence the films we entertain ourselves with often tend to have tidy upbeat endings, such as the Hollywood version of The Natural, which produces a heroic end rather than the tragic one played out in the book.

This conflict regarding how to end films in Hollywood is a comical undercurrent in The Player, with Tim Robbins (1992). So it is that an analysis of the top 250 films of all time in most lists will reveal that tragic stories are a small minority.

Last night in a periodical called The City I read a fascinating essay by Paul D. Miller called Rediscovering Tragic Film, dealing with the films of Christopher Nolan. Nolan's name is no doubt familiar to movie buffs because he seems to be really connecting with the films he's been cranking out, most recently Inception starring Leonardo DiCaprio. It was probably Memento that first caught the public's attention, and a string of hits have followed including Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Night. Miller notes that five of Nolan's six big films are are built around the elements of tragedy, yet the sum total of these films has generated 2.5 billion dollars in revenue, no small potatoes.

Miller writes, "A tragic plot is especially effective if it incorporates four elements: necessity, surprise, reversal, and recognition. Aristotle argues that the plot must proceed along a necessary chain of cause and effect, not by chance or randomness. 'The effect is heightened when, at the same time, [the outcome] follows as cause and effect,' because the tragic conclusion could not have been otherwise. A terrible but random event -- say, an earthquake -- inspires pity but also detachment, while a terrible event resulting from human choices and happenings that followed necessarily from them are terrifying because we can see how it could happen to us."

So it is that Chinatown, a Roman Polanski masterpiece, (spoiler here if you have not seen this movie) captivates us with its surprises, reversals and the plodding inevitability of its tragic end. Jack Nicholson sees it all coming, sees his part in the destruction and tragically sees, in retrospect, how it all happened.

According to Dr. Miller, Nolan's successes as a director and screenwriter reveal a thirst amongst movie-goers for real stories. "Real stories," he writes, "are ones that reflect true things about life, human nature, and the world we live in. Most films depict cardboard caricatures, not human beings, and take place in a fantasy world where good always triumphs. That Nolan's films make money and win praise shows that movie-goers sense something true in them."

I found Miller's essay satisfying and thought provoking. You will find more of Dr. Miller's film reviews here.  

The City is a publication of Houston Baptist University.

*Wikipedia

A Big Black Eye for the FBI -- Richard Jewell Is A "Must See"

Paul Walter Hauser and Sam Rockwell with director Clint Eastwood. 

This Clint Eastwood film is an absolute powerhouse. Eastwood has a history of creating compelling stories and in recent years some especially important ones. With Richard Jewell he's done it again.

The screenwriting was superb. In the first six minutes we have a series of scenes that show us who Richard Jewell was, revealing facets of his character and introducing us to the film's key players in a non-forced manner. Jewell was a good-hearted, but quirky, young man who wanted to do good, but who didn't have a clean sense of boundaries in that regard.

For those unfamiliar with the story, it is about a bomb that exploded in Centennial Park during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Jewell, a security guard at the event, found the backpack containing three large pipe bombs packed with nails and immediately reported it to authorities who called in the bomb squad. Though he did everything in his power to clear the area so that people would be safe, the bomb exploded before it could be defused. Despite his efforts, there were one or two killed and more than a hundred casualties. (Had he not been there it would have certainly done far more damage.)

Sam Rockwell, the other hero.

The media immediately recognized him as a hero, but the FBI placed him on a suspect list, perhaps because they had no other suspects. Instead of using all their powers to find the guilty, they used deceit and every kind of devious means to crucify this innocent man who had no motivation other than to do what was right.

Another real hero in this film is the attorney who stepped in and did everything within his power to protect a vulnerable man.

The real villains? Mainstream media and the irresponsible actions of the FBI.

In addition to an amazing story we see top-notch acting, and superb story-telling in this film. The tension is palpable as we watch the insidious actions of our lawmen trampling Jewell's rights, using bugging equipment and people wearing recording devices to get Jewell to admit he did it. It was literally unbelievable how far they were willing to go.

Jewell made one especially good move. When the FBI set him up and pretended to be making a movie of him as a hero, they gave him a clipboard and asked him to sign a document, on film, of him confessing to the crime. Richard Jewell knew right then he needed to call a lawyer. If he'd not made that call he probably would have received the death penalty and this film would never have been made. Instead he got his life back.

Do you have an attorney whom you could call were you suddenly accused of a crime you didn't commit? That was my own first thought upon watching this film.

Naturally the line from Dylan's "Hurricane" jumps to mind. "It makes you feel ashamed to live in a land where justice is a game."

Afterwards I looked through the movie reviews at imdb.com and thought these noteworthy.

Excellent portrayal of the sleaziness of law enforcement
I have experience dealing with the Feds and found this movie incredibly compelling. So much about this movie hit home for me. Just a few examples, when the Feds came to talk to Jewell and tried to make him sign shady documents, bugging his home, the slick self-righteous agent who thinks he decides who is right and wrong, cleaning out his home supposedly looking for evidence, wasting time on easy, harmless suspects instead of finding the real criminals to boost their career. It's sad. All that time spent looking at Richard Jewell as a suspect while the real terrorist got away. They knew he was innocent, all they had to do was actually do some actual investigative, science-based investigative work instead of using confirmation bias.

Watch a man get mauled by overzealous FBI and frantic media
Jewell becomes a "person of interest" and the frantic media jump on the story. It is frankly incredibly frightening when you put it all into context and see how a man's life gets mauled. Per the usual, Eastwood does a great job to keep the movie going forward. The all- star ensemble cast is incredible: Paul Walter Hauser IS Richard Jewell, and Sam Rockwell, Kathy Bates, Jon Hamm and Olivia Wilde are equally outstanding. This movie was filmed in the Spring of this year, and now barely 6 months later, it is already in theaters.

Clint Eastwood, now 89 going on 90, called security guard Richard Jewell's story "a great American tragedy," and said it's a story he's been trying to tell for five years. I, for one, was gratified to have seen him finish what he started.

Rockwell, Bates and Hauser were pitch perfect.

There was a special moment in the film in which Kenny Rogers was performing the evening before the bomb blast. Rogers just passed away earlier this spring, so he very likely had a chance to see this film when it was released last year. He may even have received some royalties from the song's inclusion in the film. "You gotta know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em."

The media bloodhounds did not fare well in this film. Shrill, intrusive, careless. Not too unlike today, actually.

Richard Jewell was played by Paul Walter Hauser, a relatively unknown whom you may recall from the film I, Tonya, about another Olympics-related crime. Mad Men's Dan Draper was the lead FBI agent whose odious behavior really makes your gut churn. Kathy Bates as Richard's mother is likewise stellar as she sees the cruel way her son is maligned by the press and can't comprehend how this could be happening. And Sam Rockwell was pitch perfect as Watson Bryant, the attorney who rescued Richard from a fate worse than death, the permanent public indignity of being branded a terrorist bomber.

When it was over, another Eastwood film with a similar theme came to mind about a hero who gets treated like a criminal, the film Sully, starring Tom Hanks. Films like these and others--like Just Mercy, The Oxbow Incident, 12 Angry Men--show how Hollywood can serve a redemptive role in society. Who is stepping up to be the next Clint Eastwood with the courage and commitment to shed light on these kinds of stories?

* * * *
Related Links
A Kenny Rogers Memory
A Photo Gallery from the film
Richard Jewell, the man and the aftermath

17 Thoughts In Response to Kathryn Bigelow's Detroit

1967 Detroit riots. Photo Credit: Public Domain/http://j.mp/1SPGCl0

It's an axiom of great photographers to focus the lens on a micro view that serves as a mirror of the big picture. For example, a closeup of a mother weeping over her shrapnel-damaged infant son as a means of showing the side effects of carpet bombing and the meaning of that impersonal euphemism, "collateral damage."

This, it would seem, is what Katheryn Bigelow was attempting to do in her 2017 focus on what occurred at the Algiers Motel in the movie Detroit, a purportedly fact-based film set against the backdrop of the Detroit riots of 1967.

My initial title for this review was going to be Detroit Starts Fine But Veers Into Horror for Horror's Sake.

My blog response was initially going to read... Recommended: Read the Reviews and Skip the Film. Or maybe, Recommended: Don't watch this if you're depressed.

I would have skipped it altogether (a public response) but then found myself dwelling on certain aspects of the story and decided to make a list of thoughts about the film, partly in an effort to purge myself of some things that were stirred by watching it.

1. "the city routinely declined to promote black patrolmen, and the police had a reputation for exhibiting 'crude racism' and ignoring the needs of the black community. The police were perceived as unwilling to enforce the law and slow to respond in black communities, and police harassment of African Americans was the norm. Subsequently, African Americans... tended to strongly distrust the police. There had also been several incidents of brutality committed by the police... which worsened the tension between the police and the city's African American citizens."

The above paragraph is taken from a Wikipedia entry not about Detroit, but about riots in a section of Cleveland in the mid-Sixties. It could have been Chicago, L.A., Newark, Louisville, Kanas City, Baltimore or a multitude of other places, including Detroit.

2. The incident at the Algiers Motel in Detroit served not as a microcosm of the problems in Detroit, but of a pervasive issue throughout the nation.

Newark riots. Photo Credit: Tabitha C. Wang, Public Domain

3. My family living in New Jersey at this time. After the Newark riots, a neighbor of mine stated that there were cops in Newark who welcomed the riots. It gave them an opportunity "to shoot a n***** and get away with it." His uncle, a cop, had said this. Being an impressionable teen it depressed me to hear this.

4. Will Poulter played one of the most evil characters I've ever seen in film, but this character was not really a character. Compare Poulter to Javier Bardem in No Country For Old Men. Bardem was scary bad, but interesting. Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood was another evil man, but we saw a fully developed character, a human being with motivations, albeit bent.

5. Speaking of motivations, none of the characters appeared to be really developed. The five Motown singers were given a few minutes to let us know they were young folks with dreams. Characters have motivations. Characters must each have a quest, something they want. We only got that from one person in the film, a singer who had talent and a dream.

6. To quote from one of the reviewers, the film became "an over-indulgent orgy of violence" that failed to address the historical context in which the riots arose.

7. There are a lot of films that deal with tension, violence and the like, but the best films give the viewer some relief, places to catch one's breath. Maybe that is the point that Ms. Bigelow was making. "If you think an hour or two of unrelenting torture is bad, well imagine how these kids felt after eight hours of this, and worse." O.K., but I didn't sign up for that. And whatever happened to the maxim, "Less is more"?

There are dozens of films that effectively deal with injustice without putting this whole horror directly in your face. Even Tarantino's violence is interspersed with comic relief.

8. The deeper, long-term causes of the riots barely appear in the film. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, "The deeper causes of the riot were high levels of frustration, resentment, and anger that had been created among African Americans by unemployment and underemployment, persistent and extreme poverty, racism and racial segregation, police brutality, and lack of economic and educational opportunities."

9. The crazy guy who fired the fake gun and initiated this whole crazy sequence events was killed right at the start. Why didn't anyone explain what happened? I dunno.

10. O.K., maybe I do sort of understand this. One time, in my hippie youth, I was beaten up by a couple tough guys from outside the neighborhood. The police talked to the assailants first and afterwards hassled me in such a way that I, like the victimized young people in the film, kept my mouth shut. I could tell the police had no interest in my side of the story. I suppose it is possible the young people were too terrified to speak and believed any attempt to say anything would be considered insolence. Power can be intimidating.

11. Getting back to Will Poulter... How do actors feel after playing a role like that? I mean. at the end of each day, where is your head at?

12. In some communities, like Duluth, there have been improvements. Here is an example involving an artist, Carla Hamilton, who was profiled, singled out and interrogated improperly. Her response was to go to Chief Tuskan and turn this into a learning moment for the police by having them hear how they mishandled the situation. The follow up was an art exhibition at the Duluth Art Institute the following winter.

This would not have happened 50 years ago. The dialogue with Chief Tuscan led to a broader dialogue, ultimately with the community.

13. Improvement does not mean that race issues have disappeared. There is much work yet to be done.

14. The animated re-telling of the story of how blacks migrated North for jobs in the rust belt and the "white flight" that occurred in the inner cities after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that permitted blacks to leave the ghettos, this was well done and got my hopes up for the film. Handled with a light touch, yet informative. The scenes that followed raised more questions than they answered.

15. There are many ways to tell a story. I can imagine that many people watching on DVDs quit watching before it reaches any kind of conclusion. I think here of 12 Angry Men, which deals with an injustice without hanging it in front of your face.

16. One reviewer at imdb.com  wrote, "Too bad the writing didn't create a more coherent picture of the time period. Statistics of unemployment, arrests of African Americans, a rising black prison population, would have helped create the setting in which the riots occurred." Well, that is the kind of material you can bring to the fore in a documentary.

17. The next comment from the reviews falls into the same category, info that could be better shared in a documentary. "The film fails to show how the riots were a watershed moment in the history of Detroit, how everything afterward became worse economically for the city and where that left the city today. Near the end of the film, Detroit goes from civil rights drama to procedural drama and completely loses its way. Certainly, presenting what happened to the three white officers charged with murder was worthwhile, but that could have been done in a paragraph as an epilogue."

* * * *

The history of race in America is depressing to think about, but it cannot be ignored.

Related Links
imdb.com User Reviews
DAI Exhibit Targets Tensions, Solutions

Meantime, life goes on all around you. Make a difference.

The End of the Tour: A Review of the Film Based on David Lipsky's Account of a 5-Day Interview with David Foster Wallace

I don't know if it's a given for all, but based on my own experience and observations of others, writers enjoy movies about writers. In one way or another they usually reflect aspects of the writer's own struggle, or shine a light on aspects of the process that we've all been through in our efforts to craft an article, story or more substantial work. And since all films begin as an idea that is translated into a screenplay by writers, there are quite a few movies about this dreadful profession such as Capote, Misery, The Hours, Sunset Boulevard, The Shining, Adaptation, Stranger Than Fiction and Wonder Boys.

A short list of personal favorites might include The Ghostwriter, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and Midnight In Paris. And having just finished The End of the Tour for the second time, I may need to place it somewhere here. It's about a writer on assignment from Rolling Stone covering the last days of David Foster Wallace's book tour promoting his opus, Infinite Jest.

The film was not a big box office hit. There were no special effects, no dead bodies. No chase scenes. No sex. There's a sense in which it compares to My Dinner With Andre, which is essentially two men talking about life over dinner. In Tour, Wallace and his interrogator, I mean interviewer, are in various settings though the thread of the story is essentially the banter between them. Since Wallace is a fan of tennis, we could describe the action as a series of volleys, which ultimately serve to reveal both players' characters.

* * * *
The film begins with Rolling Stone journalist David Lipsky noticing a Newsweek review about David Foster Wallace whose 1000+ page book is getting notice. Lipsky manages to get the assignment and flies off to spend five days with Wallace, in his home and in Minneapolis/St. Paul, the last stop on Wallace's promotional book tour. (The one scene takes place in The Hungry Mind, a book store we used to frequent when we lived in the Midway district.) In the end, these five days become the basis for Lipsky's own book Although of Course You End Up Becoming Yourself which he produced after Wallace's suicide in 2008.

David Ulin, in his LA Times review of the film states, “The End of the Tour is all about our relationship to image, both in the story it tells, of a writer at the very moment he became an icon, and also in the way it tells that story. The movie makes this explicit by framing its main narrative as extended flashback, a memory play provoked by Wallace’s death. It gives the action a bittersweet, nostalgic edge it did not have — could not have had — in actual life."

Because Wallace himself was a writer who had skewered other writers, he was keenly aware of the power Lipsky was being given to shape the public's perceptions of Wallace. How much should the object of a profile dictate the final shape of the observer's observations?

Nat Hentoff ran in to this conflict when he wrote the first Playboy Interview of Bob Dylan in the 60's. As part of the arrangement Dylan had the right to see the final manuscript before it went to press. Hentoff wrote years later that Dylan spent two hours making changes, re-shaping how he would come across in the final version of the piece. Hentoff vowed to never be put in that situation again.

In reality, Wallace didn't like the role of being a specimen in Lipsky's petri dish, especially when it appeared that Lipsky was reading things into Wallace that weren't there.

DAVID 

I’ve written enough of these “pieces” to know that 

you could present this in a hundred different ways. 

Ninety of which I’m really gonna come off as a 

monumental asshole. But it seems like your read 

of this is, “Huh: what an interesting persona Dave 

is adopting for the purposes of this interview.”

In the LA Times story Ulin goes on to write: "And yet, that raises the question, doesn't it, of what it means to see Wallace portrayed as a character in a film? 'A writer who courted contradiction and paradox,' Christian Lorentzen described him this month in New York magazine, 'who could come on as a curmudgeon and a scold, who emerged from an avant-garde tradition and never retreated into conventional realism, he has been reduced to a wisdom-dispensing sage on the one hand and shorthand for the Writer As Tortured Soul on the other.'"

When I first saw the film, I had not yet read anything by Wallace, so I didn't grasp many of the key elements of the story. What I did get out of the first viewing was a measure of prodding to find something he'd written. After completing a set of his essays the film took on more significance.

Though it was Jesse Eisenberg (who is also a writer) as David Lipsky who I'd tuned in to see, Jason Segel stole the show with a superbly nuanced performance.

Here are excerpts from three reviews on Amazon.com that I thought might help finish this portrait of the film for you.

1. Prior to seeing this film, I had limited knowledge of David Foster Wallace and his works. After seeing the film, I wanted to learn more. The End of the Tour (dir. James Ponsoldt) is a very reflective film, highlighting author Wallace on the last stretch of his book tour for his novel Infinite Jest. Our entry point into this intriguing man is David Lipsky, a Rolling Stone reporter hired to do a piece on him in the late 1990s.

2. Few times this year, or in the past few years, have I thought "Wow, this performance, or for that matter this film, is revelatory", but I had that while watching The End of the Tour and specifically Jason Segel. What's most impressive here is the lack of any false drama. It's these two guys talking to each other, in the respect of a formal interview, over the course of four days, and while Eisenberg is quite good, it's Segel who is just mind-blowingly good here. Like, this is the guy from Forgetting Sarah Marshall? And The Muppets? He plays David Foster Wallace as disarming, shy, clever, engaging, engaged, at times appropriately miffed (or p'd off) and can also be funny and genuine and witty. These are all written in the script, but Segel makes them real, and it doesn't feel like a put on, which would've been the death knell here.

3. I didn't realize when watching the film that the dialogue is all based on, if not directly taken from, the tapes journalist (and protagonist) David Lipsky (Eisenberg) recorded of his interviewee, universally acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace (Segel). The dialogue is rich with insight into the character's thought processes and their observations on life (but mostly those of Wallace). I was riveted at every moment the two were talking, feeling as though being revealed before me were the truths of life. The thrill of being a fly on the wall. And it's not just the words containing the wisdom of the thoughtful and complicated Wallace, but the delivery via the actors and the way in which the many hours of tape are edited to allow Wallace's ideas and observations to resonate. Even beyond Wallace's ideas, the film cuts to the core and observes Wallace as a human being, not different for his brilliance but the same for his humanness.

* * * *
This film isn't for everyone, but I do believe there are some real takeaways for writers. Here's the rest of that LA Times review.

Meantime, life goes on all around you. And if you're a writer, write on. 

Gravity Is More Than SFX

Two years ago if you did a Google search on the word "gravity" I am guessing you would have found some variety in the list of URLs offered up, most of them dealing with gravity, as in the kind of gravity that pertains to apples falling from trees or that keeps us from floating away when we walk to the store. This morning, the entire first page of Google reveals links to web pages about the film Gravity.

When the trailer for this film was being shown in theaters last year my first response was, "Ho hum, another special effects movie." Apparently a lot of folks in Hollywood weren't of that same mindset. The film garnered a full slate of Oscar nominations, a brought home its share.

You probably already know the storyline, so I will be brief here so I can add my own perspective. Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a medical engineer on her first mission to the space shuttle out there orbiting our planet. One of the other space stations somewhere out there get shattered and is transformed into missiles of space debris. The shuttle is seriously damaged and the two survivors, herself and the soon to retire veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) must find a way home.

One can't watch a film like this without making comparisons to others. I couldn't help but think of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Both films conveyed the otherness of outer space and the marvel of hovering over the earth. Both films also utilized the sound track to good effect. Kubrick used classical music to convey the lyrical sense of unhurried movement through ethereal. unimpeded space. Director Alfonso Cuarón used the soundtrack to amplify the tension that Dr. Ryan felt in her various circumstances as she battled to survive in her various scenarios.

Apollo 13 is another film that one might readily think of, especially with regard to the interactions with ground control in Houston. One difference between the films is that we never leave the point of view of Dr. Ryan. The only characters in Gravity that we really meet are Clooney and Bullock. We do hear other voices, including Ed Harris reprieving his role as the voice of Houston Ground Control.

A third film that came to mind at one point as I watched was Jurassic Park, not because of the similarity of story, but rather because of the similarity of emotional pacing. Both films seem designed to create a super-intense emotional rush followed by a catch-your-breath period only to take you to more intensity again, often in very unanticipated ways. To full engross yourself in the film you have to tamp down that inner critic that wants to say, "Isn't this getting a little formulaic?"

The film is more than a masterful re-creation of the weightlessness of outer space and astronaut life. There actually is a storyline woven through the heart of all the close calls and survival challenges. Dr. Ryan has to face the meaning of her life. Little by little her inner story emerges. It's a hero's quest of sorts, one we ourselves must wrestle with now and again. Why am I here? Or in this battle for survival, what am I fighting for?

She'd lost something precious. Would she find something to take its place?

It's worth renting if you missed it in theaters. 

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

“The truth? You can’t handle the truth.”
~Jack Nicholson as Col. Nathan R. Jessup in A Few Good Men

“There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity!”
~Burl Ives as Big Daddy

Last week I watched Paul Newman, Elizabeth Taylor and Burl Ives in the powerful Tennessee Williams drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Whoa, what a scorcher.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS

Burl Ives is Big Daddy, and he’s coming home to celebrate his 65th birthday.. He’s just finished having a medical exam to find out what was ailing him, and lo, he got a clean bill of health, so now he’s smiling. He's ready to live large once again. The problem, from the start, is a problem of mendacity.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is one of numerous Hollywood productions of Tennessee Williams plays and Williams introduces its theme early.

Mendacity: the quality of being mendacious; untruthfulness; tendency to lie.

Brick (Paul Newman) is an alcoholic failed football star who has gone away and remained distant from his family; Maggie (Elizabeth Taylor) the wounded wife pushed away by consequences she’d never anticipated. Newman had “big time” written all over him, but it wasn't to be as he now deals with his disillusionments. Gooper, his brother, became a lawyer and did all the right things to earn Big Daddy’s blessing, but the story is complicated and Williams is brilliant at skimming off the layers of the onion to reveal the story’s heart.

Big Daddy is a self-absorbed, insensitive modern day (1950’s) plantation owner who has more wealth than he knows what to do with. The situation that takes place in the space of a day tells the story of all their lives. Brick, who seems despicable at the first, is actually sees clearly how distorted the family dynamics are, and he wants nothing to do with any of it. His brother Gooper and his wife Mae are determined, as the good son and daughter-in-law, to get the blessing and all the goods that come with it. They've been faithfully producing potential heirs to the “Big Daddy” throne and waste no amount energy kowtowing and sucking up.

In contrast, Maggie’s womb is barren, though not because of her desire that it be so. Brick has emotionally cast her away because of an incident that occurred in a hotel room involving Maggie and his best friend Skipper, who committed suicide afterwards. Brick shuts her out so that Maggie never has a chance to tell her side of what happened. The root incident, in keeping with the theme, turns out to be that Skipper couldn’t face the truth either.

The pivotal theme is mendacity. Big Daddy is definitely going to die and he doesn’t know it, yet. This fact, which initially only the doc is aware of, begins to seep through the family and we see, one by one, the various ways in which the characters respond. Ultimately Brick lets it slip. Big Daddy is stunned.

The film sets up Brick’s character in the opening scene where at three in the morning he tries to run the hurdles, while booze-plastered. We see a brash young man who drinks too much, is careless and breaks his ankle in a foolish manner. The broken ankle serves as an external metaphor for the internally crippled man who deals with his pain through rivers of whiskey.

As the film progresses the scales begin to come off the characters’ eyes. What Williams does so effectively is to enable the audience to see who these characters are before they each discover for themselves who they really are. It’s a Hitchcock device, except instead of a gun in the drawer that only the audience is aware of, it’s our knowledge that at some point Big Daddy’s going to discover the truth (that his cancer is incurable) that creates tension. Like Brick’s broken ankle, Big Daddy’s cancer is likewise symbolic of his inner condition. Unlike Brick, whose ankle will heal, Big Daddy’s condition is terminal.

They’ve all been living lies in one way or another. Ultimately we learn the root beliefs that formed the motivational drive in each character, with the ultimate revelation coming in the final basement scene with Brick and Big Daddy. It’s a moment of truth that flows from the story yet of which the audience has know foreknowledge.

This is not a film formulated strictly to entertain. It is a story designed to unveil uncomfortable truths, to enlighten. I have no doubt Williams’ aim is for viewers to leave the theater introspectively, asking themselves how much mendacity and self-deceit they themselves live with.

If you hear echoes of the parable of the prodigal son, you’re probably not far off from the impetus for the original play.

As for the acting, it’s first-rate throughout. Newman, Taylor, Ives and the supporting cast are stellar.

Movie Review: I Was a Teenage Narcissist

The 1950's was a hey-day for horror flicks. American's couldn't get enough of them, and Hollywood did it's best to satiate that appetite. So we had flicks like Tarantula, The Mole People, The Beast with a Million Eyes, The Neanderthal Man, The Son of Dr. Jekyll and dozens of others like them showing up because now, it was possible to not only place them in theaters, the industry had a new vehicle of distribution called the television. And nearly every city worth its salt had a Friday or Saturday night horror slot to fill.

Teen films were another genre that was huge back then when kids could afford movie tickets and gas. Hollywood sprang to life filling this hunger, too. Movies like Gidget, all the beach party films, Girls Town, The Wild One, Rebel Without A Cause and The Blackboard Jungle ensured that there was never a dull moment for teens back then.

Into this context Hollywood director Peter Duncan sought to blend the two hot interests with his failed “I Was a Teenage Narcissist,” the story of a troubled teen seeking help through hypnotherapy, but his evil doctor tricks him into an early version of primal therapy that transforms him into an egotistical narcissist.

WARNING: THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS

The film was shot in just over three weeks and released within months. The cast was entirely no-name actors and actresses. Ironically, for Michael Landon this film was his big break, eventually resulting in a lifelong career in television.

The hero in the film is Ted Harrison (Landon) who seemed to have had a normal childhood, playing baseball every day after school, catching frogs, trying to find ways to fit in with the kids in the neighborhood. He did all the usual things kids do. One day his father called him to his study and gave the “the talk.” "Adolescence is a hard time," he said. He told Ted that he would be going through changes soon. 

One day everything was fun and games, and then suddenly, he began to fidget more in school. And when he walked past his reflection in a window there was always a need to fix his hair. He began buying packages of combs. His hair grew thick and fast, dark waves of unruly umber. It all happened too fast. Ted becomes confused and starts hanging out with the wrong crowd.

This leads his parents to worry about the boy and so he is brought to the evil Dr. Burke. It's a classic encounter and I wish I could say it was masterfully handled, but it was not.

The film is flawed in a number of ways. The sound track, instead of enhancing the tension, is far too intrusive and at times downright annoying. Also, the pacing begins far too slow and no ADD teen today would spend five minutes with it. But there were several interesting scenes which showed that director Peter Duncan had far more insight into the characters and story than a typical surface explication.

For example, when Ted gazes into the eyes of the beautiful young Yvonne, she thinks he is looking at her beauty when in reality he is looking at his own reflection in her eyeball. The camera work is extremely good here as it conveys wordlessly what is going on. But the really amazing part is that when the angle shifts, viewers see that Yvonne is doing the very same thing. She is worshiping her own reflection in his eyes.

Maybe this is the horror of being a teen. We  so want to be loved, yet the flame burns brightest at the altar of our own reflection.

The film is very hard to find. I could not find it on Netflix or Blockbuster, but I did see it on VHS at a video store in Duluth when we first moved here in the late 80's. If you've never seen it, all I can say is, "You didn't miss much."

Meantime life goes on.... all around you.

Rocky Balboa: A Critical Review

"Rocky Balboa is without a doubt the best sequel in the Rocky series. It is touching, exciting, well-acted, well filmed and well written." ~Comment at imdb.com

So, I finally caved in and watched Rocky Balboa last week, the sixth and final episode of the Rocky series conceive by and starring Sylvester Stallone. Sly owes a lot to Rocky because he was the character that opened all the doors for his career in Hollywood, against all odds.

If anyone remembers, Rocky V was a bomb. Whatever it aspired to be, it was not a fitting end to the story of a fighter who never gives up, always willing to take it on the chin to go another round. Stallone evidently believed the Rocky series should end on a high note, and here we are with Rocky Balboa.

An astonishing number of people commented on this film at imdb.com, the place I go to see what the public thinks about movies. The critics are hit and miss, sometimes unreliable because of a built-in bias against certain directors or Hollywood of Indie films, or they're stroking someone whose career they want to see take off. In this case, the lavish praise for Rocky Balboa appeared as over-the-top as the character himself.

~Stallone proves he's more than a stereotype.
~A Mature Rocky, still packs a Punch!
~A fitting end to an iconic series
~The final round of the greatest hero in the history of Cinema
~Now, this is how it ought to end!
~Incredibly Inspiring - even after seeing them all many times.
~Bring a box of Tissues to this one!!!
~Do not listen to the critics!!!!!!!
~Sly Floors The Rest!
~Yo! Adrian... Rocky's Back

There is ample evidence that the Rocky story has connected to the hearts of the masses. He's the iconic symbol of an underdog, and his films repeatedly grossed millions of dollars. But to be honest, it was painful watching this film. Not only is everything here predictable, it's filled with lame dialog and a tiresome Stallone whose manner of speech begins to really grate on your nerves after a while. (OK, if you love da guy, you love da face and d'way he he tawks.)

Here's the definition of the word cliché: A cliché is an expression, idea, or element of an artistic work which has been overused to the point of losing its original meaning or effect, especially when at some earlier time it was considered meaningful or novel.

The story line here involves a young heavyweight champ who has been undefeated in 33 fights, mostly knockouts. Mason "The Dixon" Line is king of the hill, but now boxing is all spectacle and losing its fans. What can be done to bring boxing back to a more respectable, and profitable, level? The sports network creates a fantasy match between Mason Dixon and Rocky Balboa, allowing computers to reproduce the fight. Of course one thing leads to another and the former champ agrees to "an exhibition match" with the reigning champ.

Rocky is in the neighborhood of sixty and, well, all he does all day is walk around mumbling, so he's really not in shape. Yet, when all is said an done it's "here we go again" with the Rocky theme park music.

Adriane is in her grave but Paulie is still here, and a grown son... and a new love interest. It's Hollywood and that love thing has to be there.

No spoiler here. Despite the insipid lines throughout, there is a measure of surprise and class in the tight finish.

You might enjoy this film, but if you squirm a little with the slow pace for the first half, don't say I didn't warn ya.