Celluloid Heroes

The war is lost… But if you think that I’ll leave Berlin for that, you are sadly mistaken. I’d prefer to put a bullet in my head.

The German film Downfall details, rather unflinchingly, the horrific and often bizarre last twelve days of the Nazi regime during April and May of 1945. By now, Adolf Hitler (Bruno Ganz) has retreated to the bunker as Stalin’s forces encircle the city of Berlin. Bent and infirm, he is no longer the beer hall firebrand of the early Nazi era. The last few holdouts like Heinrich Himmler (Ulrich Noethen) and Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes), gather around the Fuhrer as he orders counter attacks by armies that exist only in his fevered imagination. His generals attempt to convince him that there is no hope and they should appeal to the western powers to broker a peace. Hitler and a few fanatical yes-men like Goebbels squash any such attempts at reason.

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Look, you work your side of the street, and I’ll work mine.

Because of its legendary car chase through the streets of San Francisco, Bullitt probably has a reputation as a more action-packed movie than it really is. In reality, it’s a fairly realistic and low key cop drama about a witness protection detail that goes horribly wrong.

Bullitt is also the film that makes the best use of the onscreen image of Steve McQueen. He remains, to this day, the quintissential embodiment of “cool.” Almost without effort, he exudes a presence that most actors would kill for and he does it with a minimalist style that sometimes makes Clint Eastwood look like Al Pacino.

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I wonder how such a degenerated person ever reached a position of authority in the Army Medical Corps.

He was drafted.

Anyone who pops in their DVD of Robert Altman’s movie adaptation of Richard Hooker’s novel expecting to see a two-hour version of the TV show is in for a rude shock. The long-running series starring Alan Alda is related to this movie only by title, character names and setting. Stylistically, they are very different animals altogether.

The CBS sitcom, for its groundbreaking subject matter, is still a traditional “workplace” comedy at heart, very much in the tradition of The Mary Tyler Moore Show. The TV Frank Burns has far more in common with Ted Baxter than with the religious fanatic portrayed by Robert Duvall in the movie.

The movie version is a choatic, anarchic and hilarious celebration of insanity as an antidote for insanity. (more…)

We just beat Germany and Japan. Who the hell are you?

Making a film about Howard Hughes is quite a challenge, given that the man was largely an enigma even to the people who knew him best. How do you tell the story about who struggled to hide his numerous demons and lived the last few decades of his life in virtual seclusion from the world? Director Martin Scorcese wisely chose to concentrate on the part of his life that was lived in the public eye but that is also part of the weakness of The Aviator. The facts presented here are well known to those familiar with the life of Howard Hughes and don’t really offer an incisive look at the private man.

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There’s always room.

Hotel Rwanda has been compared to Schindler’s List, and there certainly strong parallels between the two films. Both concern the efforts of ordinary men to shelter defenseless people in the face of genocidal insanity. In both cases, the men in question used their skills as businessmen to bribe, stall or otherwise keep death outside their door. Hotel Rwanda does not, however, deal with a man as deeply flawed as Oskar Schindler. There is no mystery about Paul Rusesabagina’s motives, no question that he was a fundamentally decent man. This is not a flaw in the storytelling, just the reality of the story they are trying to convey.

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