LOOK BACK IN ANGER (1958), dir. Tony Richardson

Beginnings of a Genre that was All the Rage.

The best thing about “Look Back in Anger” is Richard Burton, whose volcanic performance as Jimmy Porter set the bar for angry young men in Great Britain.

Like Malcolm McDowell in Lindsay Anderson’s “If…” (among other films in the “angry young man” genre released during the following decade), Jimmy isn’t thuggish as much as he is disaffected. His answer to the question of what he wants in life—“Everything… nothing…”—indicates a profound confusion about his own place in the universe. Though college educated, he lives in relative squalor. Though bestowed with artistic gifts, these traits haven’t helped him achieve much in the wider world. Perhaps Jimmy is just too lazy to apply himself, and prefers hurling invectives from the sidelines at others. At any rate, Jimmy’s life is his soapbox, from which he rails against the upper-class, popular culture, and everything in between.

For the most part, Jimmy’s audience consists of his wife, Alison (Mary Ure), and close pal Cliff (Gary Raymond). Cliff occupies the spare room in the couples’ flat, and works at Jimmy’s candy stand. A close friend, he often acts as peacekeeper when tensions between the Porters flare up. Usually, it’s Jimmy who goes too far, making one too many snide remarks about Alison’s family, or Alison herself.

On the morning of a particularly ugly incident, Jimmy is seething because his wife has written a letter to her parents. They happen to be old money-types who never approved of the marriage, and it incenses Jimmy that she maintains communications, when he has abandoned all civility. Jimmy makes relentless fun of them while Alison goes about her ironing, pretending to ignore him. This only makes him try even harder to get a rise out of his wife. Cliff tries to persuade his pal to back off. But that leads to rough horseplay, which causes Alison to burn her arm.

After Jimmy retreats to the nearby pub, following harsh looks from his wife, Cliff tries to comfort Alison. He mentions that he is thinking of abandoning their crazy household. In a moment of intimacy between friends (although it is implied that Cliff thinks of Alison more strongly than that), he asks why she doesn’t just give up on the abusive marriage, and leave Jimmy.

“I’m afraid,” Alison replies. After all, she isn’t sure her parents, whom she is estranged from, will take her back. Later, however, we find out more. Alison is pregnant, has been pregnant several months, and has yet to tell Jimmy. She has vacillated on the decision of letting him know, and now feels uncertain she wants to have the baby at all, since it would cement her bond to this angry young man. In desperation, Alison seeks the counsel of Helena Charles (Claire Bloom), a childhood friend who happens to have landed a role in the local play.

Helena—a prim, raven-haired beauty—presents a fine constrast to Alison, who possesses straw-blond hair and more earthly charms. Helena also appears to be the more stronger-willed of the two women. She refuses to be brought down by Jimmy’s snide remarks, although an attempt on his part for “a little fun,” crashing one of her rehearsals, nearly pushes her over the edge of good behavior.

Having witnessed the way Jimmy treats her, Helena desperately tries to convince Alison to leave him. Her main problem, however, is that she still finds herself attracted to the fire that burns incessently inside her husband. She relates the story of how they met—Jimmy walking into the dance at her old town, covered in motor oil, seemingly burning even then. While that reminiscence doesn’t change Helena’s opinion about how bad a husband Jimmy is, she admits that such an angry man must make life exciting. At this point, a strange look comes over Helena, which implies a possible weakness to the very trap she is trying to extricate her friend from.

Will Alison run away from Jimmy? Will Jimmy change his ways after finding out that he is going to be a father? Will Cliff really jump ship, leaving his two closest pals to their domestic strife? And ultimately, is Helena to play a larger role than enabler to all this?

Director Tony Richardson and screenwriter Nigel Kneale—with John Osborne providing additional dialogue for his adapted stage work—resolve everything in a relatively unsurprising fashion. More compelling are the insights into Jimmy, what motivates his contempt for religion, culture, even education. He was once the beneficiary of university training, but now, the way he uses erudite words in his rants seems like a deliberate attempt to bring them down, to make them vulgar.

So why is Jimmy full of rage? The answer, it turns out, falls into what Orson Welles cited as “pop psychology:” Like Charles Foster Kane, Jimmy Porter suffered a childhood trauma. He lost someone dear to him. Now he resists the love of those who would willingly give it, pushing them away with insults, sometimes unconsciously. But at the same time, nothing seems to make Jimmy sadder than the thought of one more friend going away. “The child is father to the man,” sayeth the poet Gerald Manley Hopkins. In his heart, Jimmy wants everything to be the way it was back when he was a little boy, back when he was happy.

But alas, the nature of life dictates that people must move on, must leave us, must change. The realization on Jimmy’s part—that people never stay, that nothing remains the same—fuels his rage at life itself. At a relatively young age, he already learned the inevitability of death. So now, at twenty-five, he firmly says to hell with earthly ambition, and to hell with love, money, art, and other earthly trifles (Basically, he adopts the whole “angry young man” thing).

Jimmy has stared into the abyss, and having not fallen in, turned away scarred. Only the appearance of a soul mate, worn down as much as him by despair and bitterness, can bring out his long-dormant sense of empathy. That is the only way Jimmy can ever change, and while such a fate has tragic implications, it also provides a strange sense of comfort when it finally comes along, and saves him.

Overall rating: ***1/2 (out of ****)

GREETINGS (1968), dir. Brian De Palma

The Cinematic Technique of De Palma, fashioning Postcard of Distrust, Sexual Deviancy

During the last twenty-something years, Brian De Palma’s films have featured themes of voyeurism and obsession, while the director himself has employed musical scores that resemble Bernard Hermann in the way they ratchet up suspense. In the service of dark, psychological thrillers, these flourishes have earned De Palma the distinction, or derision, of being an Alfred Hitchcock clone. This is an insinuation I have always felt was unfair.

Haven’t we already seen what train wreck ensues when filmmakers simply ape Hitchcock’s camera moves, which is what happened in Gus Van Sant’s restaged “Psycho?” If that disaster proved anything, it’s that cloning the technical aspects of an auteur does not alone guarantee success. The director must bring something of himself to the project; he cannot get away with simple plagiarizing.

What complicates matters is, the personal traits De Palma brings to his movies are the same ones Hitchcock brought. Both share a fear of women. They each made films featuring characters who become obsessed or paranoid. And in their heyday (the 40’s and 50’s for Hitchcock, the 80’s for De Palma), both men pushed the boundaries of permissible violence and sexuality onscreen.

But De Palma also has a pretty strange sense of humor, which precedes his reputation even moreso than Hitchcock’s did (maybe because Hitchcock’s tended to be more subtle). In a movie like “Greetings,” one of De Palma’s earlier works, the bizarreness helps locate the film in the director’s canon, despite the lack of a Hitchcock-style plot.

The movie opens with TV footage of President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking the American people during a speech, “Have you ever had it better than you do right now?” It’s meant to be ironic, as the movie depicts a group of twenty-something New Yorkers who believe they are not living in the greatest era of their country’s history. Paul (Jonathan Warden) worries about having to go to Vietnam; he has an interview at his neighborhood draft office coming up. His pals Lloyd (Gerrit Graham) and John (Robert De Niro, in his first credited movie performance) want to help him fail it, so they keep him awake for two straight days. That way, Paul can convince the Army psychologist he has insomnia, rendering him unfit to serve.

Lloyd, meanwhile, doesn’t have to worry about being sent over to the ‘Nam. Any military official who spends five minutes talking to the lanky, wild-eyed JFK assassination aficionado would seek to have him committed. As for John, he seems confident he can fail the interview by convincing the recruiter of his involvement in a white-power militia group. After exhausting that plotline fairly early, John begins exploring his voyeuristic tendencies. He even starts to stalk unsuspecting women.

While the “peeper” portion may sound like familiar territory for the director, De Palma, who co-wrote the screenplay with Charles Hirsch, mostly plays that angle for laughs. John spends a lot of time following different women, but his compulsions usually lead to wacky hi-jinks, such as pretending to be an artist putting on a show called “Peepers and the Peeped.” After convincing a shoplifter (Rutanya Alda) from the bookstore where he works that his faux show is for real, he brings her back to his apartment, and records footage of the woman performing what should be her pre-bed ritual.

The scene’s humor derives from her horrendous acting, and the way she exaggerates her routine (Do most women wrap their stockings around their necks, then preen in front of their bedroom window…?). At the same time, the first-person perspective of the camera, representing John’s p.o.v., and the sound of his voice manipulating the subject, make the sequence feel uncomfortably voyeuristic. But for the most part, De Niro, who would later achieve iconic status in “Mean Streets” and “Taxi Driver” gives a solid comedic turn.

De Niro’s gift, which has served him well in countless, more serious roles, is the emotional investment he can put in every scene. When he finally shows up to the recruiter’s office, looking and sounding the way B.D. from “Doonesbury” would in the same situation, his façade initially seems way out there. However, De Niro’s genius is not playing the situation as comedy. On the contrary, he plays this junior jingoist as seriously as George C. Scott would later undertake George Patton. He inhabits the character, and I only wish Hirsch had scripted, and De Palma had filmed, the full interview which would have followed the introduction.

Graham and Warden do good work, too, embodying the mistrust that characterized the Vietnam War era, and the confusion that accompanied sexual liberation. Lloyd is obsessed with finding out the identities of the police officers who pulled up in front of the boarding house where Lee Harvey Oswald had a room. Supposedly, the cops honked their horns twice, then drove off. What was their relationship to one of history’s most famous assassins? Will the unexpected appearance of someone claiming to be the son of the boarding house owner finally break the case “wide open…?”

Paul, meanwhile, tries to find love through computer dating. His amusing vignettes (each proceeded by a psychedelically purple title card) feature women who want to use Paul—for sex without intimacy, as surrogate father, as religious inductee—without providing him with what he really wants. What is Paul looking for? Not mere sexual release, evidently. Why else would he turn down the attractive, mildly hostile Bronx secretary, who accused him of just wanting to get into her pants, but left him a trail of bread crumbs to where she lay naked in the bedroom…?

Well, one obvious reason is to let Lloyd sleep with her instead. This allows for “Greetings’” most brilliant moment of morbid lunacy: a long, single take where Lloyd, addressing the camera directly, disputes the FBI’s official ballistics report detailing President John F. Kennedy’s assassination wounds. As Lloyd rants on and on about the discrepencies, he uses a magic marker to plot the impact of every bullet fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. However, Lloyd plots this information on the naked, sleeping body of the woman he just had sex with.

Naturally, drawing on a nude bedfellow becomes trickier when said figure lies on her back, which Lloyd needs access to. Lloyd addresses this problem with the confidence of someone who has done this sort of manipulating before. Whenever he needs her to lift an arm, or turn over onto her stomach so he can figure out the angle that the bullet exited out of the president, he simply plants kisses on a strategic location. The slumbering body inevitably moves, and Lloyd can continue with his work.

“Greetings” has an improvised, madcap energy, which sustains the movie while Hirsch and De Palma flail about for a plot. Indeed, the first half feels particularly aimless, like a collection of interesting montages and trick shots in search of genuine purpose. Granted, the filmmakers could have intentionally structured the movie that way, in order to reflect the lonely, listless, stuck-in-a-rut feeling that pervaded the country during the late 60's. But, in reflecting artfully on a quagmire, Hirsch and De Palma may have created their own morass, and one which requires patience to slog through.

Luckily, the dual appeal of De Niro and De Palma is considerable. “Greetings” gradually focuses more of its attention on John, as his penchant for falling into absurd situations make him the poster boy for his time. Perhaps De Palma was struck by the intensity De Niro brought to the peeper. Or maybe he recognized a star being born before his eyes. Cinematic history, as well as a peerless list of classic roles, certainly vindicates De Palma’s decision to spend more of the film’s second half following John. As for the director himself, there are moments when his sense of playfulness comes to the forefront. Take, for example, the scene where John chats up the shoplifter. As he describes “Peepers and the Peeped,” the camera slowly pulls back, and a woman can be seen undressing in her ground-level apartment window. It’s the perfect peepshow.

A book on Hitchcock’s films appears as a prop in Paul and Lloyd’s apartment. But I thought I recognized more of the influence of Antonioni, if anyone, in the montage sequences that occur during many of Paul’s couplings. Meanwhile, it’s fascinating to see that, back in 1968, De Palma was already proficient with cinematic sleight-of-hand. Initially, when the shoplifter performs the act which earns her her assignation, other voices distract us, and events happen so fast we can’t be sure what she did. Later on, however, when John meets her on the street, he mentions what happened. De Palma then cuts to the same clip; indeed, she shoplifted that book.

Throughout his career, De Palma has enjoyed leaving clues in plain sight. Then, as the mystery unfolds, he doubles back upon them. He encourages active audiences; he used sleight of hand in “Dressed to Kill” (1980), “Mission Impossible” (1996), as recently as “Femme Fatale” (2002). Perhaps Hitchcock also did the same trick in his time. But the thing to remember is De Palma used them in a genre Hitchcock wasn’t particularly known for.

Overall rating: **, *** if you're a De Palma fan (out of ****)

KIKI'S DELIVERY SERVICE (1989), dir. Hayao Miyazaki

A Most Be-Witch-ing Good Time (Return to Main Page)

This older film by Japanese animator Miyazaki tells the story of Kiki, a cute 14-year old girl about to begin her training in witchcraft. In Kiki’s family, witching appears to be a family tradition; her mother mixes explosive potions downstairs from her room, and when the time comes to depart, even passes down her flying broomstick. Those enchanted brooms only have a limited amount of trunk space, however. Enough for a small radio and a talking black cat. As far as clothing, Kiki has to bring what fits on her back, which happens to be the standard uniform of young witches: an oversized, dark-purple dress.

The night Kiki leaves, she encounters a driving rainstorm. She takes shelter in the open car of a train, which drives off while she sleeps. The next morning, she awakens to find herself in a sprawling town beside the ocean. After making sure no other witches live there (Apparently, each town/city has a maximum witch-in-training quota of one), Kiki decides to settle in the bustling port. Unfortunately, the busy pace constantly interferes with her studies. Who has time to master the intricacies of witchcraft, when living costs are so high? In exchange for a room, Kiki takes a job at a bakery (the proprietors are a kindly couple, one expecting mother and her mostly non-verbal partner). She also starts the titular business, which quickly begins to thrive, thanks to her ability to take parcels anywhere by air.

Despite this rare ability, Kiki’s main draw is her everyday girl appeal. She’s plucky and sweet, and the way she won’t hesitate to perform good deeds for strangers earns her fast friends. At the same time, I hoped no one would take advantage of her naivete. After all, this is her first visit to the big city. Luckily, in this film—as is the case for Miyazaki films I’ve seen so far—just about every character is good at heart. The nerdy boy who shouts excitedly at Kiki when she first touches down, rubbing her the wrong way, turns out to be nice. He makes wicked innovations to a bicycle. And the nature-loving artist who initially seems aloof becomes a valuable friend. She teaches Kiki an important lesson about how to work through stress.

Even the pals of the glasses-wearing boy, Tombo, don’t seem so bad in the end. When they first meet Kiki, they seem unimpressed by her plain style of dress. She’s the new girl meeting the cool kids. Trust that by the end credits, however, they accept the young witch for who she is (in-line with the film’s central theme: the importance of being true to oneself).

Exactly how does Kiki manage to gain acceptance in the town, without having to give up those traits that make her special? Let’s just say there is a plot occurrence, involving a zeppelin that breaks loose on a windy day. This particular set piece would look spectacular in a live-action movie, but it seems almost quaint in this one, where the main character spends much of her time soaring above the ground like Superman. But at this point in the film, Kiki has become increasingly distracted with her new life, and as a result, her powers have begun to fade. Will Kiki rediscover her focus, and regain use of her abilities, in time to fly to a friend’s aid?

It’s a safe bet. After all, this is a cartoon for general audiences. And while a lot of Japanese anime is serious and disturbing on the level of a Coppola film, “Kiki’s Delivery Service” happens to be charming good fun. Hayao Miyazaki, who directed it, has made several great animation masterpieces, including “Castle in the Sky” (1986) and “Princess Mononoke” (1997). He has been called the Walt Disney of Japan, and certainly deserves comparison. His films feature fluid, detailed animation, and imaginative designs of characters and backdrops.

Meanwhile, even if a talking cat like Jiji doesn’t hurt Miyazaki’s chances of scoring with the young children’s market, “Kiki’s Delivery Service” also appeals to older audiences. Even those who might not plunk down $9.50 for Disney’s “Chicken Little” come November. Why the wider demographic appeal? My guess would be the more sophisticated storytelling. By this, I am not referring to the quality of animation, which might have been superior at Disney (There’s amazing visuals in “The Rescuers Down Under,” which came out roughly the same time). What I mean is, there’s more substance in a film like “Kiki…” (And less of those annoying musical numbers, too).

Sure, the main character is a witch, and her witchly powers do play a pivotal role. However, the plot of “Kiki’s Delivery Service” is not some operatic rehash of good versus evil, right versus wrong, absolute power corrupting absolutely, etc. Stripped down to its bare bones, the film is really about a young person’s first fateful steps into the wide world. It’s about entering the world, and learning how to navigate it—not just in terms of paying rent and buying food, but the holding onto of ideals, especially those pertaining to the self, what we think we should be. All this, as a maelstrom of change occurs all around.

Anyone who has ever left home for college, or moved to an unfamiliar new city, can relate to Kiki. Witchly powers aside, she lives a scenario where her struggles and responses feel like those of a real person. Which brings me to another trait I have always admired about Miyazaki: In the vast majority of his films which I have seen, his characters always have unusual depth for cartoon folk. Yes, I know those are two-dimensional drawings cavorting up there on the big screen. But as I watch them, I feel there’s a backstory I can detect, something which comes across in every word or action.

Perhaps the best compliment I can give the master animator is that his characters all seem to live real lives. Even in the case of a witch, it’s really neither blessing nor curse to be born that way. It’s just another kind of living.

Overall rating: **** (out of ****)