Cecil B. DeMille's Film Style

CECIL B. DeMILLE (1881-1959)

One of the true pioneers of the American film industry and the cinema's ultimate showman, Cecil B. DeMille helped put Hollywood on the map with THE SQUAW MAN (1914), pioneered the use of high-contrast lighting in THE CHEAT (1915), played a pivotal role in the founding of Paramount Pictures (and became the studio's first head of production), his THE KING OF KINGS (1927) had -- at one time -- been seen by more people than any other film, and his most famous film, THE TEN COMMANDMENTS (1956) is still run on American TV each year.

DeMille's critics have, at different times, held him up as an emblem of commercial Hollywood filmmaking at its most crass and overblown, whose films may be seen as tacky, vulgar, campy, old-fashioned, theatrical, and so on. And on a personal level he has been criticized for his rough treatment of actors, his right-wing politics during the McCarthy era, and his religious hypocrisy.

But whatever criticisms can be made against DeMille's films, it cannot be denied that he knew how to create great and memorable images.

I was recently going through the flood sequence of Michael Curtiz' DeMille-inspired NOAH'S ARK (1928), trying to find an image I could freeze frame and pull to illustrate my write-up of that movie. As I went through each shot, I could not find a single one that could stand on its own as a great image. Added up, sure, the sequence is impressive enough, but when you begin to look at how it's put together, it becomes clear that Curtiz was throwing a lot of coverage shots together hoping they'd stick. Curtiz could imitate but it never feels like the real thing, never adds up to anything other than an imitation.

DeMille, on the other hand, had a clear vision and purpose for every image that he put into his films. When you look at a sequence like the parting of the Red Sea in THE TEN COMMANDMENTS, you can find numerous images that work on their own, which also add up to create a cohesive and spectacular whole. Many of the criticisms of his work remain perfectly valid, but running throughout that work is a cohesive artistic vision that was all DeMille's own.

Hollywood Party (1934)

This chaotic mess of a film took over a year to complete, with eight directors (including Richard Boleslawki, Allan Dwan, Edmund Goulding, Russell Mack, Chuck Reisner, Roy Rowland, Sam Wood, and George Stevens) taking turns at the helm. Jimmy Durante plays as a Tarzan-like jungle movie star who throws a big party in order to convince Baron Munchausen (Jack Pearl) to let him use his real lions in his next picture and add some real thrills to it for a change. Polly Moran, Charles Butterworth, Eddie Quillan and June Clyde are among the cast who appear in the various scattered threads of the plot, which is peppered with cameos by Robert Young, The Three Stooges, and even Mickey Mouse, in an animated sequence provided by Walt Disney. Incredibly, the whole thing was shot by the great James Wong Howe, whose talents were certainly wasted here.

 Laurel and Hardy steal the picture when they show up toward the end to deliver the lions, and quickly become engaged in an egg-breaking battle of tit-for-tat with Lupe Velez. This sequence, the highlight of the film, was directed by their old cameraman George Stevens, whose masterful handling of comedy is evident in giving Velez and The Boys room to perform the routine without any unnecessary intrusions. It says so much about Laurel and Hardy's incredible gifts for comedy that they could do more with a little scene like this than MGM could with all of its mighty resources poured into the film.

Film vs. Movie

I was recently began teaching a course on the history of film at a local university. A friend asked whether I make a distinction between a “film” and a “movie” when discussing the subject.

I knew what he meant by this: the idea that a “film” is something to be taken seriously, something worthy of being studied, while a “movie” is something essentially disposable, lightweight, for entertainment only.

Thinking for a moment, I replied that, no, I do not make such a distinction, and that, if anything, I take very much the opposite point of view when discussing cinema. Rather than drawing an arbitrary distinction between a so-called serious “film” and a frivolous “movie”, I prefer to take the approach that all films are equally valid, and worth considering on their own terms.

This, of course, is not to argue that all films are equally successful, only that as works of art, they deserve to be viewed and considered on their own terms. A phrase that I often use is, “a movie is a movie”; meaning that, whatever else their individual merits, all of these works are part of the rich tapestry of cinema, and should be allowed to speak for themselves.

To illustrate how detrimental imposing such limiting viewpoints can be, consider the large number of films that were embraced and acclaimed upon their initial release, but have seen their reputations slip in subsequent years, usually due to a shift in the artistic or social values that the film represents. Or alternatively, think about how many films are widely cherished today that may have been ignored or dismissed when they first appeared.

Shifts in critical consensus reflect a change in values, and these shifts ultimately reveal how fleeting such values are.

For Heaven's Sake (1926)

One of Harold Lloyd's more lightweight features (running just under an hour), but also one of his funniest. Lloyd plays a wealthy idler who inadvertently helps a minister save his struggling mission, and quickly becomes invested in his newfound philanthropic venture after falling in love with the minister's daughter.

Though there are plenty of good gags throughout, this plot serves largely as a setup to the impressive chase sequence that occupies nearly the final third of the film. Filled with breakneck stunts, expertly-staged car chases, and enough gags for two or three movies, it's easily one of Lloyd's best set pieces.

In addition to the brilliance of the comedy, one also has to appreciate the brilliance of the filmmaking, especially Walter Lundin's shimmering cinematography. Directed by Sam Taylor. Written by John Grey, Ted Wilde, Clyde Bruckman, and Ralph Spence (titles). With Jobyna Ralston, Noah Young, Paul Weigel, James Mason.

Hail Caesar (2016): A Hollywood Fable

I watched HAIL CAESAR, the most recent theatrical film by the Coen Brothers, again last night, this time on my 100" screen in my basement theater. It's a movie that I fell in love with instantly the first time I saw it, even though it took me a second viewing to really get adjusted to just why I loved it so much.

Released to mixed critical reviews and frequently negative audience response, HAIL CAESAR is, to me, one of the very best of all of the Coen brothers' films, a loving tribute to the magic of movies. The episodic plot follows a day in the life of a harried studio executive, brilliantly played by Josh Brolin, as he struggles to bring to completion the studio's big Biblical epic "Hail Caesar", after its star (George Clooney) has been kidnapped and held for ransom by a group calling itself "The Future", all the while dealing with his stable of eccentric stars and their various personal problems in order to maintain equilibrium behind the scenes of his Dream Factory.

More than most films dealing with the movie industry, HAIL CAESAR explores the religious aspect that movies can play in our lives, and the power that they have to shape our dreams and our vision of ourselves. The film is set in the early 1950s at that moment just when the seams were really beginning to show at the edges of the Movie Capital of the World, and directors like Billy Wilder were beginning to explore the seamy side of Tinseltown in films like SUNSET BLVD. This image of a Hollywood gone to seed has been mined before in films like LA CONFIDENTIAL, HOLLYWOODLAND and even Tim Burton's ED WOOD, but the Coens approach it with a deft combination of lightness and grandeur that beautifully contrasts the tangled web of behind-the-scenes goings-on at the studio, and the projected illusion of fantasy that we continue to believe in.

The brilliance here lies in the fact that the Coens convey this magic through the use of movie archetypes in the characters in situations, and by structuring the film around the production of a biblical epic about an arrogant Roman officer who is blinded by faith after encountering the face of Jesus. By extending the religious metaphor to the power of film itself, the Coens create one of the medium's most insightful commentaries on itself.

Borderline (1950)

A pair of narcotics agents, unaware of each other's identities, go undercover in Mexico to bring down a big-time drug smuggler. A light little crime drama from Universal-International, with lively performances by MacMurray and Trevor as the agents, and a suitably menacing turn by Burr as the smuggler they're after.

Starring Fred MacMurray, Claire Trevor, Raymond Burr. Directed by William A. Seiter. Seen on PizzaFlix 6/1/18.

The Lion's Den: New Independent Comedy from Ben Hozie

My friend and fellow independent filmmaker Ben Hozie has just released his latest film, the "video comedy of errors" THE LION'S DEN, available for free streaming on vimeo. This is a very funny and on-point satire about a group of Staten Island revolutionaries who plan to kidnap a high-power corporate CEO, but instead pick up a low-level accountant by mistake. And that's just the beginning, as the group of radicals begins to devolve into in-fighting and romantic jealousies.

You can learn more about Ben's other film projects at his website, Pretorius Pictures.

Check out THE LION'S DEN here, and support truly independent filmmaking!

Phantom Lady (1944)

PHANTOM LADY is an atmospheric little thriller from Universal in 1944, directed with great visual flourish by Robert Siodmak. The premise is intriguing: a man's wife has been murdered, and the only person who can provide a concrete alibi for his whereabouts at the time -- an unknown female companion wearing a distinctive hat -- has completely vanished into thin air; even the witnesses who remember the man's presence in the bar, in the cab, etc. the night before swear that he was alone. When he is sentenced for his wife's murder, time starts running out to identify the woman and clear the husband's name.

This is the kind of sleek, economical picture the studios could do so well in the '40s, with the pistons firing on all cylinders -- unpretentious yet stylish, with a good cast and a smart script. Franchot Tone delivers a good performance with tongue just enough in cheek to suggest he doesn't take the proceedings too seriously, while Ella Raines and Alan Curtis make an appealing and earnest leading pair. There's a fun nightclub number, too, performed by Aurora Miranda (Carmen's sister). And Elisha Cook Jr. is in top form as a sleazy jive band drummer -- in one scene, he pounds away feverishly at his drumkit, obscenely stroking away so furiously that he appears on the verge of either a heart attack or an orgasm.

D.W. Griffith: Master of Cinema by Ira Gallen

Ira Gallen's study of the early career of D.W. Griffith is one of the finest books on the subject of film published in recent years, and certainly one of the most thorough published about the complex, often contradictory, still controversial man who did more than any other figure to advance the art of film in the medium's formative years.

Gallen, a film & TV historian, collector, and archivist, has done tremendous work in recent years in championing Griffith's legacy, between authoring this book, and editing Seymour Stern's writing on Griffith's still-extremely controversial masterwork, The Birth of a Nation, which must certainly rank as one of the most important contributions to silent film scholarship. (He also has posted a number of videos of Griffith's Biograph shorts on his YouTube channel, contributing a valuable online archive of Griffith's early films.)

D.W. Griffith: Master of Cinema is focused on Griffith's early life and his career in film up through his final year at Biograph. By concentrating his study on this, the most fertile period of Griffith's career, Gallen provides a comprehensive overview of the innovations that the director was making in leaps and bounds during those years. This study, which contains analyses and production histories of key Biograph short subjects, clearly establishes Griffith's contributions to the development of film grammar, without either the hyperbolic and exaggerated claims that have been made in Griffith's favor in the past, or the tendency in recent years to downplay Griffith's contributions in favor of shining a (deserved) light on the achievements of other directors of the period.

The final sections of the book contain details about Griffith's producing arrangement with the Aitken brothers, which resulted in The Birth of a Nation, and a scrapbook of photos from the Biograph company. Gallen also includes commentary on Griffith's legacy from leading film historians such as Kevin Brownlow and Arthur Lennig, and addresses the cowardly and shameful removal of Griffith's name from the DGA's career achievement award in 1999, solely on the basis of the racism of The Birth of a Nation. Sadly, such an act seems somehow appropriate given the film industry's shabby treatment of Griffith during much of his own lifetime as well.

D.W. Griffith: Master of Cinema is a first-rate piece of film scholarship that does justice to the complexity and importance of its subject, and Gallen is to be commended for his in-depth study of this master filmmaker's formative years, which are really the formative years of the art of cinema.

Buy the book at Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dw-griffith-ira-h-gallen/1123134988

Ira Gallen's Website: https://www.tvdays.com/

Schindler's List, Gilliam, Porter

I watched SCHINDLER'S LIST tonight for what I realized was the first time in 21 years, the last time being when it aired, uncut, on NBC in 1997. I had picked up the DVD recently on a trip to Barnes & Noble, and was interested in revisiting the film as I've re-watched many of Spielberg's films in the past few years. I don't know why it's taken me so long to come back to this one, though. It's undoubtedly one of the strongest works in Spielberg's filmography -- powerful and moving while only very occasionally (near the end of the film) moving toward the kind of manipulative sentimentality that often mars his work. Technically it's brilliant, and in terms of the ideas, certainly one of Spielberg's most sophisticated (and sincere) films.

I remembered that Terry Gilliam had criticized SCHINDLER'S LIST for what he saw as Spielberg's neat and reassuring conclusion to the events of the film, and quoted Stanley Kubrick as saying that SCHINDLER'S LIST “is about success. The Holocaust was about failure”.

Without disputing his point, I'm not sure it's fair to criticize Spielberg for not making the film that Kubrick would have made.

There's also a very powerful visual touch -- the young girl in the red coat seen early on in the film, whose reappearance later on is made all the more visceral by the standalone use of color. This device recalls Edwin S. Porter's use of the hand-colored red coat worn by a little girl in his film, THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY, where the selective use of color was also an effective form of visual punctuation.

Christine (2016)

As most viewers going into the film are presumably familiar -- as I was -- with the tragic story of news anchor Christine Chubbuck, who committed suicide on live television, CHRISTINE works in reverse, looking back from rather than leading up to its conclusion (which, crucially, is tastefully portrayed with a sobering matter-of-factness).

Perhaps because of this, the film rises or falls on its depiction of Christine, and thankfully, Rebecca Hall turns in a fine performance that fully works to center the film and hold it all together. She brilliantly conveys the pain and frustration of the aspiring news anchor's personal and professional struggles.

Especially poignant is the moment in which Christine learns that her colleague has received the promotion which she desired so strongly for herself. It's a heartbreaking moment, for sure, but Hall plays it with an astonishing restraint and honesty that makes it all the more painful to watch.

Currently streaming on Netflix.

 

Pocket cameras, 3D

After writing about Sony's Bloggie 3D camera the other day, it occurred to me that these kinds of pocket camcorders are quickly becoming a thing of the past due to the ubiquity of smartphone cameras. That's understandable, but I hope they don't go away completely. The Bloggie that I have was listed as out-of-stock even when I first began looking into getting one three years ago.

I currently have a smartphone that I use mostly for work, and while it has a nice camera on it, I find it less convenient to use than a pocket camcorder. For one thing, the storage space fills up more quickly, and getting the video off of it can be a bit of a hassle, but overall I can certainly see why most people would be perfectly content to use the smartphone as an all-purpose still- and video-camera.

Still, I hope that the market for these pocket camcorders holds on. I remember the first one that I ever bought, back in 2009, when I was making the switch to shooting in HD. I didn't want to spend a small fortune on an HD camcorder when I wasn't quite sure what to do with the format yet, so I bought one of those cheap Aiptek cameras at Best Buy. I can't recall how much I paid for it now, but I believe it was less than $100, maybe even less than $75. The only things I didn't care for about it were the fact that it had a very close lens (which I was able to workaround by adding my own attachment for a wide-angle adapter), and the fact that it had absolutely no image stabilization whatever, which made it almost impossible to get decent handheld shots. Other than that, it was the perfect transitional camera when I began shooting in HD.

My modified Aiptek with wide angle lens attachment (2009).

I also had one of those MiniHD Flip cameras for a short time, which I had been given as a gift, but I can't say I used it very often. It was a very convenient little pocket camera from what I recall, and it came in very handy for filming a conference presentation I gave at NYU around the time I had received the camera. Unfortunately, it seems that the battery began to fail rather quickly, and I could no longer re-charge it via the USB stick. The Flip cameras were discontinued not long after I had received mine -- no doubt another casualty of the Smartphone market.

The Sony Bloggie 3D works great, though, and after looking into some new editing software, I'm drawn to the idea of starting to shoot more 3D footage. YouTube used to automatically convert the left/right images into anaglyph 3D, but did away with that feature, so I now have to figure out how I can do that with the editing software I have (although it looks like I'm going to have to upgrade that in order to be able to do so. I love the idea of having the option to record in 3D on a regular basis. I'm hoping to put together a new short film project this summer and, if I can get the technical issues sorted out, would like to make it my first short film in 3D. The little Bloggie will be getting a good workout on that project, I'm sure!

Day for Night, Cinema is King

I screened a clip of the "Cinema is King" montage from Truffaut's DAY FOR NIGHT and was struck once again by how well it captures the joy and triumph when the making of a film comes together. Godard attacked Truffaut for romanticizing and sugarcoating the filmmaking process. I still find DAY FOR NIGHT more resonant of my own experiences on making my own small little movies, than any other film on the subject (Tim Burton's ED WOOD comes close, actually). In contrast, I found Godard's take on the process in CONTEMPT to be a little too jaded and cynical. While I have no doubt Godard was sincere in his attitude toward the process, it doesn't ring as true for me as the joyful sense that Truffaut conveys so well in his film. With Truffaut, there is no doubt that -- for him -- cinema is king.

Hugo

I began watching Scorsese's HUGO again the other night on DVD. It's a film I want to like a lot more than I do. It fell flat for me even when I saw it in its 3D presentation and theaters, and a subsequent viewing on Netflix did little to improve my overall impression of it.

Still, there are some moments that really work. The re-creations of Georges Melies' studio and the making of his films are vivid and work quite nicely. I could watch those scenes again and again.

There is a really odd moment somewhere toward the middle of the film, when the two children take a journey through the history of film. Scorsese puts the film on hold while he delves in to an appreciation of the magic and power of cinema. It's obviously a highly personal moment for Scorsese, and there's no denying that there is something powerful about the sequence, but it still stands out quite sharply, almost like a scene from another movie.

Godard, Sony Bloggie 3D

Jean-Luc Godard filming with the Bloggie 3D camera

I had received one of these little cameras as a Christmas present a few years, and still love using it. I believe they went on the market back around 2010 or 2011, and by the time I had got mine, the cameras had apparently already been discontinued by Sony, so they're harder to come by now.

I was thrilled to learn about the options for budget 3D cameras on the consumer market,and the Sony Bloggie 3D produces a nice image. Up until a few months ago, you could view the footage in 3D by uploading it to YouTube and watching it with red/green 3D glasses, but they have since disabled this function. The nice thing about the camera is that you can toggle between 3D and 2D filming options. I use the latter just as often, because the camera's size and light weight makes it the perfect pocket camcorder to take on trips or just carry around in your pocket.

Browsing the web last night, I came across this image of Jean-Luc Godard using one of these cameras, presumably during the shooting of his 2014 3D film Goodbye to Language. I love that this most innovative of filmmakers continues to find new ways to use consumer tools.

Ready Player One (2018)

I saw Spielberg's new film, Ready Player One, on its opening night. There's rarely any film that attracts me enough to see it on the day of its release, and I have zero interest in the current crop of slick, overproduced, corporate blockbusters, and about the same amount of interest in video games. But I was interested enough to see what Spielberg had done with the material.

Set in the near future, it deals with a lonely young man who spends his days inside the fantasy world of an immersive role-playing video game. His only friends are his virtual ones, and his life experiences are limited to being tethered to the virtual reality station. When he begins to fall in love with a female avatar in the game, and has to stop an evil corporate scumbag from hijacking control of the entire game for his own nefarious purposes, the lines between reality and virtual reality begin to blur.

This is another one of these science fiction stories reflecting the anxieties of our obsession with technology, our loss of humanity within the fantasy worlds created by social media, the stunted development of generations raised perpetually plugged-in to electronics and glued to screens, etc. None of it is explored in any real depth here, and the ending is too facile in its dealing with any of these ideas to offer much to think about afterward.

It's a little difficult to buy any such idea from this film, anyway, when it's obviously conceived as an escapist withdrawal into the world of '80s and '90s pop culture nostalgia. The result is such a hodge podge that you come away from it feeling a little dazed.

I will say that I enjoyed it considerably more than his previous film, The Post, which is Spielberg at his safest and most ossified, and totally predictable, yet -- perhaps like the nostalgia mined in Ready Player One -- there can be something oddly comforting in that.

Mystery Liner (1934)

I came across this little Monogram thriller -- based on an Edgar Wallace story about an ocean liner that is being controlled remotely -- last night on one of the public domain Roku channels. It was just over an hour long and looked like the perfect thing to watch late at night before bed.

One thing that always strikes me about these Poverty Row productions of the '30s is how often it appears that every scene was shot only in a master shot, presumably due to scheduling issues. And not only that, but that you can sometimes see the actors hesitating or pausing between lines, or starting to speak over each other, as if a re-take was called for but the time and budget didn't allow for one. It gives these movies a pace and feel all their own, one that is really accentuated when watching them late at night.

Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969)

Paul Mazursky's Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice is a brilliant satire -- funny, touching, surprisingly honest and profound. It follows a well-off, upper-middle-class Southern California couple who return from a New Age retreat changed by the experience -- or so they think. The couple uses the teachings of the encounter group as an excuse to escape their comfortable middle class trappings and explore their muddled, newfound ideas of "sexual freedom" by cheating on each other, but are finally forced to confront the emptiness of their new pursuits when they bring another couple -- their best friends -- in to the experience with them.

At first, it seems that Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice could be a freewheeling sex comedy taking advantage of the new permissiveness of the late '60s. But soon something sadder, more desperate, more neurotic comes through. The brilliance of Mazursky's approach involves using such attractive characters who seem to have it all, which makes their supposed "enlightened" attitudes toward sex all the more seductive. Interestingly, both Bob and Carol defend and justify their infidelities by describing them as empty experiences. Although both characters eventually seem satisfied with this justification, it does eventually raise the question: if it is such an empty experience, just what exactly is the point?

That is the question that the two couples are forced to face at the end of the film, which provides them with the realization they have been seeking. As the song says, "What the world needs now is love, sweet love."

A Corner in Wheat (1909) and The Sower (1850)

These farm scenes in Griffith's A CORNER IN WHEAT (1909) -- modeled after Millet's "The Sower" (1850) -- were shot in Jamaica, Queens. I loved that this shot turns up in WALL-E (2008) as an artifact of planet Earth for people of the future.

Streaming: "Desk Set" and "Rashomon"

I recently watched a couple of films on streaming. The first was Desk Set, available on Netflix through the end of January. I thought I had seen this one a few years ago, but apparently not, as it was definitely new to me. I suppose I was just familiar with the premise and could imagine how it played out so that it felt like I'd seen it.

Desk Set is one of the last Tracy-Hepburn pairings. Tracy plays an eccentric computer engineer who has come to the research department of a big TV network in order to install his machine to streamline the research process, and Hepburn is the brilliant, long-time head of research who sees the computer as a threat to her future at the company. The plot is pure romantic comedy silliness, although Hepburn and Tracy certainly lend the material a certain charm and dignity that always keeps things interesting. Most striking is the use of big splashy DeLuxe color and enormously wide CinemaScope framing, in which characters can become practically lost when watching the film on the small screen. The computer-as-villain is sort of an interesting counterpart to the usual TV-as-villain trope that appeared in Hollywood films of the time. All in all, an enjoyable if forgettable trifle, acted by two first-rate stars.

Next up was Akiro Kurosawa's Rashomon. Unfortunately the version I saw on the streaming channel I was watching (MyRetroFlix on the Roku device) cut off after an hour, but I was so thoroughly engrossed in the film that I had to pull out my DVD copy to watch the remaining half hour. I had last seen this one about ten years ago, in a beautiful 35mm restoration on the big screen of a local historic movie theater. Watching it on the small screen couldn't compare to that, of course, and yet I found myself more struck than ever by what an incredibly beautiful film it is. I do not use that term loosely; I watched transfixed by the power of the images Kurosawa captures, especially those shots looking up through the trees, with the sunlight poking through between the branches. And that torrential rainfall, pouring down over the roof of the structure where three men debate the different testimonies heard at the trial that frames the narrative of the film -- what an image! So haunting, so lyrical.