Review: Julia (1977)

* *
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Jane Fonda, Vanessa Redgrave, Jason Robbards

I'm not sure what people saw in Julia in 1977. Enough, apparently, to give it 3 Oscars and 8 more nominations and the distinction of tying The Turning Point for the most nominated film of its year. I confess that I don't get it. Perhaps, when a film features so many names from Oscar glories past (director Fred Zinnemann already had 4 Oscars, while Jane Fonda, Jason Robbards, and Maximilian Schell each had 1, and Vanessa Redgrave had already been nominated 3 times), it just seems like it must be good. I don't know, but I know that Julia is not a particularly good movie. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to call it a "bad" movie, but it's definitely a muddle in which the good elements are lost in a story which doesn't seem to know its own purpose.

The Best Picture Countdown #26: From Here To Eternity (1953)

This post was contributed by Marshall Shaffner, who writes under the banner of Marshall and the Movies. Go on over and check out his Oscar coverage as well as his reviews.

Director: Fred Zinneman
Starring: Burt Lancaster, Montgomery Clift, Frank Sinatra, Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed

It's easy to see why a movie like From Here to Eternity could take the Oscars by storm back in 1953. In the midst of a post-war baby boom, patriotism was still running high after our victory in World War II and tensions with the USSR were at a simmer, not a boil. We had yet to be mired in the Vietnam War or have our nation's highest office be tainted by the Watergate scandal. It was a different world, and movies fictionalizing these times have a mentality that reflects the times.

So when I watched the movie in an attempt to understand why it won Best Picture, I had to move myself out of our current times where last year's winner, The Hurt Locker, conveys a stark pessimism about military maneuvers. So while I might see the movie as an excessively romanticized portrait of the American soldier, they saw it as a rousing tribute to the men who served their country with honor and courage. And while I might see the movie's characters and plot as being a touch over-melodramatic, audiences were totally won over by their personification of military values. (This is not meant as a criticism of older generations, more a generalization of how audiences have changed over the decades.)

The movie follows two storylines: the tenacious Private Robert E. Lee Prewitt (Montgomery Clift) transfers to Hawaii after missing out on an unfair promotion. He was once a prized boxer and finds himself being hazed by his comrades to join their ranks, authorized from high-ranking officers. To cope, he befriends Maggio (Frank Sinatra) and romances Lorene (Donna Reed). Meanwhile, his superior, First Sgt. Milton Warden (Burt Lancaster), begins an affair with the captain's wife (Deborah Kerr) that gave us one of the most iconic love scenes ever shot. So iconic, in fact, that it had to parodied in Shrek 2.

I'd be lying if I said I loved From Here to Eternity. While it might capture the isolation of the soldiers in Hawaii and their humdrum routine existence at times, it felt like a more idealized portrait of military stereotypes. It's an interesting story (one good enough to be repeated a few times), but aside from Prewitt's erratic personality, I didn't find myself engaged in the characters at all. This is a very different kind of American war movie than is being made nowadays - chalk it up to generational differences.

Review: High Noon (1952)

* * * 1/2
Director: Fred Zinnemann
Starring: Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly

It’s the kind of thing legends are made of: a single man standing up for justice against the forces of tyranny. If that man were anyone other than Gary Cooper (or, okay, maybe John Wayne), that might make for an unfair fight but as it stands the sides are pretty balanced. It's a great movie from Fred Zinnemann, one of cinema's most incomprehensily underrated directors.

High Noon opens with a wedding and a crisis. Marshal Will Kane (Gary Cooper) has just married Amy (Grace Kelly), a Quaker for whom he has agreed to give up his job in order to take on a more peaceful occupation as a store owner. At the same time word is getting around that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald) is expected back in town on the noon train and that his brother and their friends are waiting for him so that they can take revenge on Kane and the rest of the town. Officially speaking, Kane is no longer the town’s Marshal but, because his replacement won’t arrive until the following day, he feels compelled to stay and face Miller and his gang.

Everyone knows that when Miller gets off the train and is reunited with his gang, the situation is going to explode because Miller isn’t one to let go of a grudge and Kane is the man who arrested him, leading to an order of execution that has now been commuted. In order to effectively face down the villains Kane needs to organize a posse but no one in town is willing to stand up with him, including his Deputy Harvey (Lloyd Bridges), who is only willing to do the job in exchange for Kane’s promise to help him get promoted to Marshal.

With growing disgust, Kane watches as the people he thought that he could count on, the people whose comfort and safety he has assured for years, turn their backs on him and tell him to get out of town – not for his own safety, mind you, as he and certainly everyone else knows that if Miller wants him dead, he’ll find him; but because they don’t want to get caught in the middle of the trouble and would rather let Miller run roughshod over the town than stand up to him. With noon swiftly approaching, the townspeople hide themselves away, leaving the streets empty save for Kane.

The first thing that must be noted about this film is the simply marvellous performance by Gary Cooper. The western is a particularly masculine and macho genre and its heroes don’t often get to display the kind of vulnerability that Cooper makes available to Kane here. He’s a strong man and brave, but that doesn’t mean he can’t also be scared and agonized over the way that he has been shunned by the town. There’s never any real doubt about the way the story will resolve itself, but Cooper effectively conveys the possibility that it could turn out otherwise.

The film, which takes place almost in real time, is one of tightly-coiled intensity. It manages to tell a lot of story in a short amount of time without making the narrative feel crowded. There is a subplot involving Harvey and his anxiety over the state of his masculinity, which is intensified by his relationship with Helen Ramirez (Katy Jurado). As he exists in Kane’s shadow as a lawman, so he exists in Helen’s life, as she’s Kane’s former mistress. There’s no better way to explain Harvey’s problem than through Helen’s words: “You’re a good looking boy. You’ve got big, broad shoulders. But he’s a man. And it takes more than big, broad shoulders to make a man.”

Well-known for being an allegory about the communist witch hunts, High Noon manages to incorporate its politics into the story without doing so in a heavy handed way. However, while the film is powerful there’s something about the ending that is somehow not quite as satisfying as it should be because Kane’s final act is sort of a “you can’t fire me, I quit” kind of moment. It’s funny to me that while history has taken to including those who “named names” amongst the villains of the HUAC hearings, a film in defence of doing so (On The Waterfront) resonates so much more deeply than a film about standing up to the Red Scare thugs. Don’t get me wrong, High Noon is a great movie, but it lacks some of the punch of Kazan’s masterpiece.

100 Days, 100 Movies: A Man For All Seasons (1966)

Director: Fred Zinneman
Starring: Paul Scofield, Robert Shaw, Wendy Hiller, Susannah York

To some a film about Sir Thomas More’s refusal to take an Oath of Supremacy and sanction Henry VIII’s annulment of his first marriage in order to marry Anne Boyleyn sounds, well, just a little dry. However, this film, which vibrates with life and intelligence, is anything but boring. With a compelling performance by the recently departed Paul Scofield at it’s center, and an electric supporting performance by Robert Shaw as Henry VIII, this is easily one of the most entertaining and engaging historical films ever made.

The stage is set at the beginning of the film by Cardinal Wolsey, played by Orson Welles who, as always, brings something a little special to the film (even a bad film is kind of good when Welles is involved). King Henry is seeking a divorce and Wolsey has summoned Sir Thomas More (Scofield) in an attempt to persuade him to change his position and support the King’s pursuit. It’s more or less a matter of politics, Wolsey explains, not a moral issue. More’s response is the heart of the story: “When statesmen forsake their own private consciences for the sake of their public duties, they lead their country by a short route to chaos.” For More, a man who goes against what he feels is right has no place in a position of power. The film is smart in the way that it grounds More’s conviction less in a vague sense of what the public might think of him, and makes his immediate concern the opinion of his beloved daughter Meg (Susannah York). His struggle really is a personal one, not just in the way that it sets his own soul at ease, but also in the way that it allows him to look at his daughter with the certainty that whatever happens, she’ll know that he stood for something.

More’s refusal to spout the party line eventually leads to his imprisonment. He’s given numerous opportunities to change his stance, he’s debated with and mocked and separated from his family. He’s told that the oath doesn’t really mean anything, but still he stands firm in his refusal to swear it. Words mean something, More argues, and he won’t swear an oath he doesn’t believe in for the sake of convenience, because he believes that he’ll have to answer for it in the afterlife. Religious belief and argument play a fairly sizeable role in the film, but it isn’t preachy. This isn’t a story that aims to sway you to one side of the religious spectrum; it just means to show that religious affiliation is meaningless if you don’t stand for it’s tenets.

Scofield delivers an amazing performance as a man who has faith but is not fanatical, who wants to please but not if it will compromise his soul. There are no histrionics here, even when More must defend himself at Hampton Court. He is from beginning to end a steady, reasonable man, a man with serious issues to contend with who nevertheless retains his wit and sense of humour. As Henry VIII, Robert Shaw is simply larger than life, the energy of his performance seeming to expand the very limits of the screen. He delivers a complex, layered performance, showing us a man who is willing to bully and dominate in order to get what he wants, but is also plagued by insecurity stemming from the idea that what he’s doing really isn’t right. If More was to fall in line like everyone else, it wouldn’t just be a matter of saving face for Henry, it would also reassure him that he isn’t acting out of the bounds of his own authority.

The performances really make the film but something must also be said about the art direction and costume design. The color pallet (which reminds me quite a bit of another vibrant film - The Adventures of Robin Hood) helps bring the film so vividly to life, especially in the scenes involving Henry VIII, whose clothes are colourful and overpowering in the same way as his personality. In contrast, the costumes designed for Thomas Cromwell (Leo McKern) are appropriately subdued and dour, reflecting his personality. All the elements in this film, from top to bottom, come together fluidly and complement each other perfectly. If you’re looking for a movie that matches it’s style to it’s substance, look no further.