MY BEST REVIEWED FILMS: 2017

5.  Barefoot Gen  (1983)  -  I had put off watching this movie because of the subject matter – Hiroshima.  It is the tale of a Japanese family who were tragically impacted by the explosion.  It is a roller coaster ride that has gut punches and tender moments.  Gen is a great character.  The animation is grand.  It is not a kids’ movie, but it is a must-see to understand what happened to the people of Hiroshima.

4.  Their Finest  (2016)  -  This movie is a real treat.  It is a romantic comedy set in wartime Britain.  A young woman gets a job writing female dialogue for propaganda films.  She gets involved in making a film about rescuing soldiers from Dunkirk.  It’s a behind the scenes look at low budget movie making with indelible characters.  The main character is a feminist before her time.  This is definitely a date movie, but don’t hold that against it.

3.  Lincoln  (2012)    While more of a biopic than a warpic, Lincoln is grand entertainment.  The acting is fantastic.  Daniel Day-Lewis got well-deserved accolades, but the rest of the cast is amazing.  The movie covers an overlooked event in American History – the passage of the 13^th Amendment.  The political wheeling and dealing is fascinating and we get a look at backstairs at the White House.  This movie is superior to the fine “Darkest Hour”.

2.  13 Assassins  (2010)  -  This is a modern samurai film.  It updates the “Seven Samurai” template.  At the risk of being branded a heretic, it is a better film.  The thirteen mercenaries are hired to assassinate a loathsome warlord.  They set up an ambush in a village that results in a very long kick-ass melee.  The movie delves deep into Japan’s feudal heritage.

 

1.  Duck, You Sucker! (1971)  -  In 1968, Sergio Leone made “Once Upon a Time in the West” and in 1984, he made “Once Upon a Time in America”.  Both movies are very well known.  But most people do not know that they are part of a trilogy.  In 1971, Leone directed the second in the trilogy – “Duck, You Sucker!”.  For some reason, the film is largely forgotten in the Leone canon.  It is not even available through Netflix.  Leone was inspired to do a film deromanticizing revolutions after riots broke out in Paris.  He decided to set the movie in the Mexican Revolution of the 1910s.  He leads off the movie with a quote from Mao Zedong.  “The revolution is not a social dinner, a literary event, a drawing or an embroidery; it cannot be done with… elegance and courtesy.  The revolution is an act of violence.”  And who knew cinematic violence better than Leone?  Surprisingly, Leone did not want to direct the film which he had co-written.  However, both Rod Steiger and James Coburn insisted.  Leone envisioned the movie as a spiritual successor to “Once Upon a Time in the West” and wanted Eli Wallach to reprise his Tuco character as Juan.  When Wallach was unavailable because of a prior commitment, Leone begged him to back out on it, which he did.  Unfortunately, the studio demanded Steiger because he owed them a film.  Wallach sued.  Things were tense on the set as Steiger played Juan as a more serious character than Leone wanted.  Steiger won and both agreed after the filming that the collaboration had been successful.  Coburn got the role of Sean after Jason Robards (for whom the role was written) was nixed by the studio as not being a big enough name.  Clint Eastwood turned down the role because he was done with spaghetti westerns.

 

                The movie is set in 1913 Mexico.  Juan Miranda (Steiger) is the head of a gang of peasant thieves that consisted mainly of his family.  Although there is a revolution going on and it is something of a class struggle, Juan is no revolutionary.  He is only interested in the class struggle with respect to the fact that the rich have the money and he wants it.  The opening scene has him robbing an extended stage coach transporting a group of the bourgeoisie.  They consider peasants like Juan to be brutes and animals, but they soon learn that Juan is no typical peasant.  Soon after, in one of the grandest entrances in cinematic history, Juan encounters an ex-Irish rebel named Sean (Coburn).  Sean is an explosives expert.  Juan envisions a partnership that will allow him to rob a bank.  Sean has more revolutionary ideas in mind.  Can an Irish revolutionary be friends with a Mexican bandit?  Could an American mercenary become friends with a Mexican bandit?  (“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” reference)  The answer to both questions would be “yes” – in a movie.  Juan and Sean go through a lot together, once they establish that they need each other and they are an even match in shenanigans.  In the process, Juan learns that there are certain things worth fighting a revolution for and Sean learns that even a good revolution has a dark side.  A lot of people will have to die and a lot of things get blown up before each man reaches his epiphany.

                It had been a long time since I saw “Duck, You Sucker!” in a movie theater.  It did not enter my radar screen until recently when it noticed it on some lists of war movies.  I had fond memories of it since I am also a big fan of Westerns, but did not think of it as a war movie.  For purposes of this review, we’ll consider it to be one since it is set in a revolution.  If it is a war movie, it is a very good one.  Well, if you are a guy, anyway.  It is a classic buddy film.  It has no romance.  There are no significant female characters.  This is definitely not a date movie.  But as a guy movie.  Wow.

                “Duck, You Sucker!” is an underrated movie.  Leone wanted to make an epic and he succeeded.  The backdrop of the Revolution allows for some huge set pieces like Sean and Juan’s defense of a bridge with explosives and machine guns.  One of the villains is a fascist archetype driving a tank.  Hardly subtle on the part of the Italian director, but effective.  The movie concludes with a grand assault on a troop train.  It reminds of the scene from “Lawrence of Arabia”, but in the Leone style of violence.  The movie is quite violent and the bloodshed is graphic, especially for the early 70s.  And, of course, there are the explosions.  It was brilliant to have a main character as a Fenian bomb maker.  I counted twenty explosions in the movie.  This is another reason why it is hard to understand why the movie did not find an audience in America.  I blame this mainly on poor marketing.  Leave it to Leone to use explosions for some of the humor in the movie.  And the movie has humor throughout.  Mainly through the Juan character.  In this way, it is similar to “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”.

                The movie is not just mindless violence.  Leone develops his themes adeptly.  His main theme is that revolutions corrupt everything they touch.   When Juan becomes a “grand hero of the revolution”, Sean is cynically proud, but the supposedly ignorant peasant sets him straight by ranting about how the people who read the books get the people who carry the books to fight to change things and nothing changes, but the poor are dead.  “And what happens afterwards is that the same fucking thing starts all over again!”  He causes Sean to throw away the copy of Bakunin’s The Patriotism that he has been reading.  Hence, the second theme – each man changes the other.  Sean learns to care about humanity again and Juan learns to support a greater cause.

                Guiseppe Ruzzolini does a great job with the cinematography.  Conforming to the epic nature of the film, he blends long takes, close-ups, slo-mo, and other tricks of the trade.  This is matched by the peerless work of long-time Leone composer Ennio Morricone.  He uses motifs for Juan, Sean, and even the bank.  The score is famous and may be the best in any Leone movie.  With all that said, the movie is most memorable for the acting of Steiger and Coburn.  They are perfect.  The chemistry is outstanding.  Steiger does a great Wallach imitation, but he surely does not come off as the second-best choice.  Juan is such a rich character.

                “Duck, You Sucker!” is a great guy movie.  It has everything – action, adventure, comedy, male bonding, explosions.  It is a must-see for all Baby Boomer men.

GRADE  =  A

Lincoln (2012)

                “Lincoln” is not a war movie, but it is a Civil War movie.  It was directed by Steven Spielberg and was under development for about ten years.  Based on the Doris Kearns Godwin book Team of Rivals, which was about Lincoln and his cabinet, Spielberg was actually working on the movie before the book came out.  The screenplay was by Tony Kirshner who spent years researching the topic.  He took some artistic license as is to be expected, but his heart was in the right place.  Spielberg’s first choice for Lincoln was Daniel Day-Lewis but he declined the role.  Liam Neeson was tabbed, but after the movie was slow getting off the ground, he dropped out claiming he was now too old.  Day-Lewis then reconsidered.  He was rewarded with the Best Actor Academy Award.  The film also won for Production Design.  It was nominated for ten other awards including Best Picture, Director, Supporting Actress (Sally Field), and Supporting Actor (Tommy Lee Jones).  “Lincoln” was a box office success and was critically acclaimed.  As a post script, one impact of the film was the final unanimous ratification of the 13^th Amendment.  It seems that when Mississippi belatedly ratified it in 1995, the paperwork was not filed properly.  Prodding from two academicians caused the Mississippi Secretary of State to rectify the error in 2013.

                The movie covers the last four months of Lincoln’s life.  It concentrates on his quest to pass the 13^th Amendment.  Although more famous for his Emancipation Proclamation, that Presidential edict did not actually end slavery.  It declared that the slaves in the Confederate-occupied South were free.  The 13^th Amendment officially ended slavery, but it was not an easy sell to Congress.  Lincoln had to use all of his considerable political skills to get the amendment through the House of Representatives.  The film chronicles the machinations that led to the climactic vote.  Lincoln is a realpolitician who allows Secretary of State Seward (David Strathairn) to employ a trio of political operatives led by the earthy Bilbo (James Spader).  The trio prove that the “spoils system” was still alive and well in 1865.  Lincoln also allies with Republican Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) who believes that blacks deserve equality along with freedom.  Not all his colleagues in the House agree with his enlightened philosophy, as the spirited debates in the chamber depict.  There is plenty of 19^th Century trash-talking.  In the midst of all this political maneuvering, there is a back-stairs at the White House arc that portrays the dynamics of the Lincoln family.  The death of their son Tad weighs on Abe and Mary.   The aged look of Lincoln can be attributed to prosecuting the worst war in American History and being married to Mary.

                “Lincoln” finished #13 in box office in 2012, which was very good for a movie of its type.  It was the only movie in the top twenty that was non-fiction.  Three of the thirteen were superhero movies, two were teenage trilogy movies, and four were animated children’s movies.  “Lincoln” was the most popular adult drama and its success proves that you can make money with a movie that has a lot of talking in it.  Although I can imagine some audience members might have squirmed like Lincoln’s cabinet when he launched into one of his homespun stories.  The movie is dialogue driven and manages to be set in the Civil War and yet avoid the temptation to throw in explosions.  Kirshner’s script is entertaining in its blend of Lincoln’s brilliant wordsmanship and the political argot of the time.  Did you know they used the f-word back then?  They also used the term “fatuous nincompoop”.  That bon mot was uttered in one of the lively scenes in the House.  Jones gets the best lines as Stevens, but the rest of his distinguished colleagues make you wish C-SPAN had a Civil War archive.   Apparently, back then, they did not use the phrase “my dear friend” before they reamed them.

                The movie is almost flawless in its execution.  It is good Spielberg.  Although the start had me concerned with its lame Spielbergian recital of the “Gettysburg Address” by a white and then black soldier.  After that schmaltzy opening, the movie settles down to straightforward narrative of the events surrounding the passage of the amendment.   The narrative is extremely well-acted by a top-notch cast.  Day-Lewis richly deserved his Oscar and even shambles like Lincoln.  Fields is great (she gained twenty pounds for the role) and gets a scene where she sarcastically tears Stevens a new one.  (Sadly, this did not happen.)  Mary’s insanity is only alluded to.  Jones and Strathairn are strong and there are plenty of familiar character actors to flesh out the film.  The cinematography is showy with the appropriately dark interiors masterly lit.  There is some bravura camerawork, like a domestic scene where Lincoln can be seen in the foreground and in the background in a mirror.  Nicely done. The sets are authentic.

                As far as historical accuracy, I found varying opinions on this issue.  It depended on how nitpicky the historian wanted to be.  But, surprisingly, I also found that there is some disagreement about some of the key facts in the story.  For instance, one of the most provocative plot developments is Stevens shacking up with his black housekeeper.  This seemingly Hollywood invention is based on a well-known rumor/calumny of the time.  Some historians are convinced it was true.  I buy it.  Here is a list of some of the major “are you kidding me?” moments.

1.  Lincoln did have a recurring dream about being the captain of a ship.  The movie implies it was an analogy of the passage of the amendment, but most historians logically feel he was subconsciously associating the ship with the war effort.

2.  Lincoln did tell stories and the ones included in the movie, like the Ethan Allen story, were among his repertoire.

3.  By the time of the movie, Lincoln had culled his cabinet of naysayers, so the movie overplays their opposition.

4.  Seward did employ some shady dealers, but we don’t know whether they actually bribed Congressman.  Lincoln certainly did not meet with them.

5.  Congressmen would not have addressed each other directly in debates, but hurrah (huzzah?) for Hollywood on this one.  Also, the vote would have been by paper ballot.  Ditto.

6.  The Robert Lincoln arc is accurate.  He did insist on enlisting and Abe did get Grant to put him on his staff.  Abe would not have slapped him, even though their relationship was frosty.

7.  The peace delegation arc was accurate, but they would not have been met by black soldiers.

8.  There were blacks in the balcony for the final vote (one was Frederick Douglass’ son Charles), but they would not have entered en masse.  Mary did not attend.

9.  Tad was at a performance of “Aladdin” when his father’s shooting was announced.

                Overall, I consider the movie to be commendably accurate.  This, added to its excellent entertainment value, makes it an outstanding movie.  It is a must-see for every American.  Even if (especially if?) you are a Confederate statue defender.

GRADE  =  A

MASTERPIECE or TRAVESTY: The Birth of a Nation (1915)

       “The Birth of a Nation” was the first major motion picture and is both famous and infamous.  It was directed by D.W. Griffith and the innovations he incorporated into the production are mind-boggling.  The movie created cinema as we know it today.  The script, which was co-written by Griffith was based on Thomas Dixon’s novel The Clansman.  Relative to its budget, the movie became one of the most profitable films in history.  When it opened in New York City, tickets were an astronomical $2 (equivalent to about $18 today).  The success was in spite of the controversy with regard to its treatment of blacks.  The NAACP encouraged boycotts of the film and it was banned in some cities.  On the other hand, the movie became the first film screened in the White House.  Pres. Wilson had been a classmate of Dixon’s in college.  Supposedly Wilson complimented the film as “like writing with lightning.  And my only regret is that it is all so terribly true.”  There is dispute whether Wilson said this and he later denied it.  However, his historical take on Reconstruction appears on a title card in the movie and the plot fits his pro-segregation views.  For the body of my review, I am going to summarize the plot, so spoiler alert.  Every history lover should know what happens in the movie, but I would not recommend watching it unless you really, really love movies or you are in film school.  Or you are a racist.

                The movie begins with the first slaves being brought to America.  “This sowed the seeds of disunion”.  The movie concentrates on two families who are friends, at first.  The Stonemans are Northerners and the Camerons are Southerners and own slaves.  Their slaves are happy and are shown dancing during their lunch break.. The elder Stoneman is a congressman and is based on Thaddeus Stevens (one of the leaders of the Radical Republicans during Reconstruction).  There are dual romances that will link the families if nothing untoward happens.  What happens is the election of Lincoln.  “The powers of the sovereign [Southern] states…are threatened by the new administration.”  When Ben Cameron’s unit marches off to war, the street is lined with cheering whites and slaves.  The movie jumps two years.  A black militia unit loots the Cameron mansion, but a Southern unit arrives to chase them off.  White men rescuing white women from blacks will become a recurring theme.  Several of the brothers die in the war.  Atlanta is burned by the dastardly Yankees.  At the siege of Petersburg, Ben’s unit leads a counterattack against Phil Stoneman’s regiment.  In an iconic scene, Ben plants a flag in a cannon mouth.  Ben is wounded and taken to a hospital where his crush Elsie Stoneman is a nurse.  They hook up, but he is scheduled to be hanged as a guerrilla (which makes no sense).  Elsie and her mother visit Lincoln to get a pardon.  Lee surrenders to Grant to end the hope of state sovereignty.  Ben returns home.

                Reconstruction begins and radicals like Congressman Stoneman protest against Lincoln’s lenient policy toward the South.  “The South under Lincoln’s fostering hand gets to work rebuilding itself”.  Then everything goes to pot with the assassination of Lincoln, which is witnessed by Elsie in an excellent reenactment.  A quote from Wilson’s History of the American People blames the carpetbaggers for exploiting the freedmen.  Congress wanted to “put the white South under the heel of the black South”.  The KKK was inspired by self-preservation, according to Wilson.  Stoneman is one of the radical leaders.  He has a creepy mulatto mistress (a white male actor in blackface) who is a Snidely Whiplash type schemer.  A mulatto named Lynch is Stoneman’s protégé and is sent to South Carolina to reverse the social and political structure.  Lynch is mentally unbalanced.  He urges blacks to stop working.  Meanwhile the Freedmen’s Bureau is duping the black farmers.  Stoneman brings Elsie to visit.  Lynch has designs on her, of course.  In the election, blacks exercise their right to vote (some more than once) while whites like Ben are prevented from voting.   Lynch is elected Lt. Governor.  Black legislators make a mockery of the legislative session.  One eats fried chicken, another swigs from a bottle.  A pro-shoes law is passed after one of them puts his smelly bare feet on a desk.   And you think Congress is bad today!  But the worst is they pass an intermarriage law.  Something has to be done. 

                Ben is inspired when he sees some white kids scaring black kids with sheets.  Thus is born the “organization that saved the South from the anarchy of black rule.”  Flora Cameron goes to fetch water and is confronted by a vile black deserter named Gus.  He wants to marry her, but does not want to wait for the honeymoon night.  She jumps off a cliff and dies in Ben’s arms.  The Klan takes care of Gus.  Lynch has the elder Cameron arrested for abetting Ben, but his loyal ex-slaves help him escape with the help of Phil Stoneman (who had been engaged to Flora before the war).  They take refuge in a cabin inhabited by two Union veterans.  “The former enemies of North and South are united again in common defense of their Aryan birthright.”  Gag!  Elsie goes to Lynch for help and he proposes marriage.  Stoneman had been in favor of his marrying a white woman until he finds out it’s his daughter.  Meanwhile, black mobs rule the town and surround the cabin.  It’s time for the white-robed knights to ride to the rescue.  There is a big battle in the town.  Ben rescues Elsie and then it’s off to the cabin to rescue the others.  There is a victory parade.  White supremacy rules.  Hurrah!

                How can a movie be both great and terrible?  Watch “Birth of a Nation” and see.  If you changed the word “writing” to bullshitting and the word “true” to false in the Wilson quote, you’d be spot on.  The film did hit the nation like a lightning bolt.  If it had come out ten years later, it would not have been successful.  It was the spectacle that drew people to the theater outside the South.  This is the best explanation for why the movie did well in the North.  Griffith was a master movie-maker.  His innovations helped cinema take off.  The movie was the “Citizen Kane” of its day. 

                The cinematography is astounding. The film features “panoramic long shots, iris effects, still shots, night photography, panning shots, and color tinting”.  The burning of Atlanta has surreal effects and a split screen for the refugees.  The last sequence has intercutting between the town, the cabin, and Elsie.  The battle scenes are epic.  Some of the shots come from a tower.  The action is tense with good hand-to-hand.  Surprisingly, the actors reload their rifles.  Often overlooked, the score is also revolutionary.  Joseph Carl Briel composed it with a mixture of classical, new arrangements of popular songs, and new music.  It fits the movie perfectly.  Briel created leitmotif’s for the main characters.  They each have their own tune.

                Less commendatory is the creation of some vile stereotypes.  The movie features Uncle Toms, the mammy, the ignorant black fools, and the unstable mulattoes.  You can spot the villains from the balcony (which is where blacks in the South would have watched the movie.)  Surprisingly, it is only the villains like Lynch who chew the scenery as only silent movie actors can.  The rest of the cast is fairly restrained.  It’s not the acting that turned my stomach.  One thing I was thankful for was the surfeit of title cards.  The movie does not have subtitles so it can be a bit hard to follow at times.  This is not a movie designed to attract modern audiences.  But when you consider what was probably coming out of the characters’ mouths, it is a good thing we could not “hear” them.

                When I reviewed Military History magazine’s 100 Greatest War Movies, I found that what critics mean by “greatest” is not the same as “best”.  Surprisingly, “Birth of a Nation” was not on that list.  But plenty of other classics that don’t hold up well made the list.  None of them were offensive, however.  This movie is obscenely racist and it does not have the excuse that it was of its time.  It was offensive in 1915 as shown by the reaction of the NAACP and the fact that the KKK revival of the 1920s was partly fueled by using the movie as a recruiting tool.  It passes on a lot of Civil War and Reconstruction mythology that people like Pres. Wilson should have known were myths.  The fact that the movie was popular with white Northerners means that people back then were just as ignorant of America’s past as people are today.

 

                So, what difference does it make as long as it’s entertainment?  It is fiction, after all.  I would argue that a  movie can cross an historical trip-line that transforms entertaining into anti-historical.  “The Birth of a Nation” leaps across that line.  I cannot condone its interpretation of history and I do not think the fact it was “written with lightning” cancels this.  It is a despicable movie. 

GRADE  =  F