Night Moves (1975)

Director: Arthur Penn
Writer: Alan Sharp
DOP: Bruce Surtees
Cast: Gene Hackman, Susan Clark, Jennifer Warren, Melanie Griffith

Harry Moseby is a private detective who is called in to trace the whereabouts of the step-daughter of an ageing actress whose media mogul husband is her only source of work.

The neo-noir films from the 70s are characterised by vulnerable detectives unlike the more cleverer and macho ones from the 40s. Chinatown is the most famous one from 70s even though I hold Robert Altman's 'The Long Goodbye' as the best. Night Moves is another one in similar vein with Gene Hackman's Moseby being a good detective but always being a bit late and one-step behind the crimes that happen in the film. He laments that things just fell into place for him rather than him working out things cleverly. Can't really fault him though because at the end of it you realize that the plot is too convoluted with too many convenient coincidences. That didn't really dilute the quality of film as it is more focused on the characters rather than the plot.

Moseby is also facing some difficulties in his marriage with his wife being unhappy about the nature of his work. At the beginning of the film, she and her gay friend invites him to watch Eric Rohmer's 'My night at Maud's' and he declines it by stating that watching Rohmer films is like watching paint dry. Later that night he discovers that his wife is having an affair. When he travels to Florida, as part of the case, a similar opportunity like in Maud's is presented to him. Despite the convoluted nature of the plot, it is a great watch with great performances. It also has got a unique visual sense with the grainy LA Florida colour tone. The film's title comes from the Knight Moves in chess but spelled differently. In psychiatric terms Knight's Move thinking is referred to something like Schizophrenia.

Rating:4/5

The Warriors (1979)

Director: Walter Hill
Writers: Sol Yurick, David Shaber, Walter Hill
DOP: Andrew Laszlo
Cast: Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright

In the near future, a charismatic leader summons the street gangs of New York City in a bid to to take it over. When he is killed, The Warriors, one of the gangs, are falsely blamed and now must fight their way home while every other gang is hunting them down.

The film came at a time when crimes and gang related violence were a problem in NYC. There is this narrative that the city solved it using the broken windows policing method and the counter-narrative to it is that the reduction was correlated to the legalization of abortion whose effect came 'teenage' and some more years down the lane. Walter Hill's adaptation of Sol Yurick's 1965 novel with the same name drew the ire of the critics when it came out mainly because it was neutral about the gangs it depicted. There was also some violence during the first days of its screening as many gang members were turning up to watch the film. Things would naturally take a violent turn when they spot their rivals during the screening.

Like 'The Driver', the story is very simple and it has a very stripped down quality to it. It has a very video game feel to it as well and it is no surprise that it has spawned video games since its release after achieving the cult status. I was pleasantly surprised to see the comic book transitions used in the film and it turns out Walter Hill couldn't include it during the theatrical run as there was no time during post-production. It was included in the Director's Cut which came out in 2005. It is very stylish in its choreography and the lady RJ reminded me of Mia Wallace from Pulp Fiction. The stunts do look a bit comical now though. It is a great watch overall without being as good as the driver.

Rating: 4/5

The Driver (1978)

Director: Walter Hill
Writer: Walter Hill
DOP: Philip H. Lathrop
Cast: Ryan O'Neal, Bruce Dern, Isabelle Adjani

The Driver (Ryan O'Neal) is a getaway driver and the best in the business. A detective (Bruce Dern) is hellbent on nabbing him and lays a trap in the form of a bank job.

None of the characters in the film have any names and there is minimal dialog. It was supposedly inspired by Melville's Le Samourai and went on to inspire films like 'The Drive' which is in fact a mix of many films including William Friedkin's 'To Live and Die in LA'. The Driver is very stripped down with a basic plot like many great crime films like Michael Mann's 'Thief'. The more stripped down they are the, better they stand the test of times. This film was in fact a disaster both commercially and critically when it came out. The protagonist, in what is a genre cliché, is reluctant to commit to the projects he is getting into and there is this one last job before retirement routine going on. It will be interesting if someone goes against this routine by having the getaway driver be very loud and gleeful about getting a project.

I haven't seen Bullitt yet and not enjoying Peckinpah's The Getaway is one of the reason why. It is on the to watch list along with Varnishing Point after these films getting mentioned a lot in the lead up to Baby Driver. Coming back to The Driver, it is Bruce Dern who steals the acting bits while Ryan O'Neal is quite fittingly indifferent to things. Many of the things that you see in the film will seem like clichés now but they must have been quite novel when they came out. I haven't seen any of the other films from Walter Hill and Warriors do get mentioned a lot from his filmography.

Rating: 4.5/5

സ്വപ്നാടനം (Swapnadanam) (1976)

Director: K.G. George
Writers:  K.G. George, Pamman
Cinematographer: Ramachandra Babu
Cast:         Dr. Mohandas, Rani Chandra, Woman
Language: Malayalam

A guy turns up in Madras in a very fragile mental state. He ends up with a psychiatrist who subjects him to Narco-analysis, through which we learn about his past, background and his marriage.

Narco-analysis in a 1976 malayalam film- Yeah, you read that right!! The protagonist is a doctor who is sort of bought off by his uncle as an husband for his daughter. And there is a lost love from campus that haunts him. Mohanlal starrer 'Pakshe' had a similar premise but the major difference is that unlike that film, the characters in this are not binary. When you apportion blame in this film for the state of their marriage, both husband and wife gets it in equal measure. The basic story is quite universal and timeless and so the film hasn't aged one bit. One minor gripe would be the performances which can sometimes seem a bit dramatic. But when you consider the time the film came out, it must have still been revolutionary in all aspects including acting. There is a tendency among Malaylees  to water down the influence of Mohanlal and Mammooty by saying that they just got lucky with the directors that they could work with. The thing is, without the naturalism that they bought as protagonists, amply supported by a huge array of great supporting actors, their films wouldn't have become this great and that too with commercial appeal.

Swapnadanam was K.G. George's directorial debut and it won the state and national awards for best malayalam film that year. Dialogue delivery by the protagonist is at its acerbic best and it turns out that K.G himself dubbed for that part. Overall, it is a great watch with some surreal dreamscape imageries thrown in as well. It is ludicrous to learn that this film was a commercial success as well and I guess the Malayalee audience were not brainless bunch of pricks back then.

Rating: 4.5/5

Blue Collar (1978)

Director: Paul Schrader
Writers:  Paul Schrader, Leonard Schrader
Cast:       Richard Pryor, Harvey Keitel, Yaphet Kotto

Three workers, Zeke (Pryor), Jerry (Keitel) and Smokey (Kotto), are working at a Detroit car plant and drinking their beers together. They have a party together and get an idea in their heads that they should rob local union's bureau safe. First they think it is a flop, as they get only 600 dollars out of it, but then Zeke realizes that they also have gotten some hot 'material' in terms of paperwork. They decide to blackmail their union.

It is a very unusual film and it had Paul Schrader making his directorial debut. For a well known figure who made his name as the screenwriter of Scorsese's 'Taxi Driver', his films are very good to look at also in a surprising way. It is not as visually stunning as his later film 'American Gigolo', but the opening credits set to a great track will have you hooked. Film is very unusual in the sense that you are not entirely sure about the tone of the film. It changes from being a crime story, to a comedy and ultimately becomes a tragedy. It also got an unusual power relationship between the three of its protagonists considering the cliched way they would have you set up in a typical mainstream film. It also got one of the funniest robbery sequences you will ever encounter with a curious disguise. 

The relationship between the three characters are convincingly portrayed. None of them are binary in nature. The main message of the film is that the authority just puts you into different tribal groups and pits you against each other so that they could control you. It is also the natural mode that Zeke and Jerry defaults into when they are facing each other during the climax. It is almost always universally true and that is how the system works in practice. It is a great watch and one of the forgotten classics from that time period.  

Rating: 4/5

The Exorcist (1973)

Director: William Friedkin
Writer:   William Peter Blatty 
Cast:       Ellen Bustyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair, Jason Miller

When a teenage girl is possessed by a mysterious entity, her mother seeks the help of two priests to save her daughter. 

I had seen this film when I was about 12 and was scared shitless. That was not such a big deal back then since any decent quality horror film would have done the same at those sort of age. Once you grow up and become rational, horror films don't work that well for you on a getting scared level and the same thing happened to me. I am not a big fan of horror films these days and the ones that I end up enjoying tend to be 'Psychological Thrillers', which doesn't go all supernatural on us. Last year's 'The Babadook', a film championed by William Friedkin himslef, was one such film and you can pretty well explain that one as it happening inside the minds of the two protagonists- mother and son. My recollection of The Exorcist was that of it being a supernatural story and I really didn't feel the need to revisit it even though I became a big fan of Friedkin over the years after watching To Live and Die in LA, Sorcerer, French Connection and Killer Joe. Mark Kermode, film critic, frequently cites 'The Exorcist' as his favorite film of all time. That and general boredom led me to finally take the plunge and revisit the film.

I don't know if I am talking absolute bollocks, but I think Friedkin is playing a huge prank on our skepticism towards horror films and all things supernatural. The mother character is not at all religious and when her daughter starts behaving oddly the doctor explains it as caused by a lesion in her temporal lobe. The scans reveals nothing and the doctors recommend 'Exorcism' as a last resort, acknowledging it as a placebo technique. On the other side you have a priest, Father Karras, who is a qualified psychiatrist. He is suffering a crisis of faith and is grieving, with guilt, the death of her mother who died old and alone. He is bewildered when the mother approaches him, asking for exorcism. Like us the viewers, he is also skeptical about supernatural things and thinks her daughter's ailment is purely psychological. It is quite a habit to check who all are in a room witnessing when something seemingly supernatural happens in horror films. This is so as to explain events as hallucinations/psychological, and till the last exorcism part of the film, I could only put the mother as sole witness to unexplainable things in the film. So you can still possibly have 'The Babadook' explanation for it. But it goes apeshit during the final exorcism and it lands like a slap in your face when she defies gravity. It also does the same for Father Karras who finally accepts that they are dealing with the devil/supernatural indeed. So, the father character, is representing us in the story and we see the film from his perspective.  

So, to sum up, it is indeed great and is not just a horror film. Performances are excellent and the atmosphere it creates is terrific. The special effects and make ups have aged very well which is remarkable. Mike Oldfield's 'Tubular Bells' is used sparingly than I thought considering the fact that it achieved its legendary status due to its association with this film. The film was an adaptation of William Peter Blatty's 1971 novel with the same name. It was the first horror film to be nominated for Best Picture Academy award but lost out to 'The Sting'. Yup, Mind-boggling!!! Begrman's 'Cries and Whispers' was also nominated.

Rating: 5/5

                                                                        

Papillon (1973)

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Writers:  Dalton Trumbo, Lorenzo Semple Jr. , Henri Charriere
Cast:       Steve McQueen, Dustin Hoffman, Victor Jory

A man befriends a fellow criminal as the two of them begin serving their sentence on a dreadful prison island, which inspires the man to plot his escape. Steve McQueen plays the role of Papillon, who is hell-bent on escaping, and Dustin Hoffman plays the role of Dega, a counterfeiter, who can underwrite their escape.

Film hinges on extremely physical performances from its two leads who got equal billing even though one of them plays the titular character but McQueen did insist on getting his name first in the same row. Steve McQueen, style-icon from the 60s, must have been in the waning period of his career but this film came immediately after his role in 'The Getaway'. It is indeed considered as his final great role and for him, the role of Papillon is very much against type. Dustin Hoffman as Dega is very funny in his typical dry manner. The first half of the film depicts the hell like life in prison which makes their plan to escape nothing but a logical next step. We don't get much insight into the backstory of the characters and I never felt that it was necessary. Hoffman's character is all about survival while Papillon wants freedom to live in the 'Civilized' world. After the escape to Honduras, he lives among tribal people with a wife and all that but he again flees from there to reach the mainland but gets himself caught again. We don't get many films that deals with colonial horror from Hollywood and this one is  one such even though it is seen through the eyes of a white convict. They are supposed to serve their time in the prison after which they are expected to serve equal amount of time as a Colonist in a remote island. 

Overall it is a very good watch with excellent performances from its leads. It is close to 150 minutes long and that length is necessary to make us really feel and relate to their ordeal. It does go a bit surreal during the sequence in Honduras making us wonder where it is going, but you have to admire the bureaucratic capabilities of Colonial empires as Papillon ends up back in the same prison after his capture in Honduras. The manner of cruelty by the prison authority is done in an impersonal matter of fact way which is preferable to some silly vendetta like portrayal.  The title for the film comes from the French word for butterfly.

Rating: 3.5/5

                                                                            

Patton (1970)

Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Writers:  Francis Ford Coppola, Edmund H. North, Ladislas Farago, Omar Bradley
Cast:       George C. Scott, Karl Malden, Stephen Young

The film charts the career of controversial American General, George S. Patton. It begins with his operations in North Africa and then proceeds to his landings in Italy and subsequent march to Palermo and Messina where he is shown to be in a egotistical race with British General Montgomery to be the first to reach Messina. He gets chided for his actions and loose tongue there and gets sidelined for sometime. He later has his career high moment after Normandy Landings when he marches his 3rd Army through tough winter weather to hold Bastogne.  After the war he is again sidelined due to his lack of diplomatic skills.

Film is basically a character study on its titular character Patton. He is portrayed as someone who loves war and thinks he is destined to achieve great things during it. He is highly knowledgeable about history and claims that he had been involved in historic battles like Carthaginians war and Neapolitan wars. We can see his colleagues listening uncomfortably to these proclamations. He sees battle fatigue as cowardice which doesn't sit well now but was a common thing for Generals to do back then. Film actually did good for Patton's reputation but I came out of it with ambivalence. Sure, you need bastards like that to win these kind of wars, but in the large scheme of things whatever that happened in Western Front during second world war was child's play compared to what happened in Eastern Front. The whole European landings and the race to Berlin by US and UK was more of an exercise to get as much leverage during their negotiations with Russians and this part of war also featured a huge number of causalities because of this race aspect. Behavior by Patton and Montgomery seems very childish and was as dignified as someone who is trying to beat someone on who gets more during a riot loot. Bastogne was my favorite Band of Brothers episode and so that part of the film was very interesting.

Overall the film is a great watch and is done in an ambiguous way so that you can judge Patton favorably or unfavorably depending on your own biases. I had just about finished Dan Carlin's 24 hours long podcast series on first world war (Blueprint for Armageddon) and I guess I was predisposed to think of Patton as a dickwad. Performance by Geroge C. Scott, whose most memorable other role is the one he did in Dr. Strangelove, is excellent and the production quality of the film is very high. It is close to three hours long but you don't feel the length. It is not a traditional war film with a set-piece battle at the end and doesn't bother to make you understand how World War played out at a macro level in an elaborate fashion. That is fine because when Hollywood does that they invariably tend to portray as if US won the war.

Rating: 4/5

                                                                         

Five Easy Pieces (1970)

Director: Bob Rafelson
Writers:  Carole Eastman, Bob Rafelson
Cast:       Jack Nicholson, Karen Black, Susuan Anspach

A drop-out from upper-class America picks up work along the way on oil-rigs when his life isn't spent in a squalid succession of bars, motels and other points of interest. We are shown that he is in a relationship with a waitress who is highly insecure about her significance in the relationship. He is shown to be very impulsive and mean-mouthed but gradually we learn that he was born into a very rich family with sophisticated tastes and he had walked out of these privileges. 

Film is a character study on the protagonist role played by Jack Nicholson, with his typical bordering on psychosis performance, and he totally owns the part. It will be fair to say that the film is unlike any other films I have seen. Actions by Bob comes as no surprise to us, especially the last scene of the film. It is not a character that I can relate with in terms of his thinking but you can understand him when he explains it during that famous conversation scene he has with his paralyzed dad-

Bobby: [finally talking with his paralyzed father] I don't know if you'd be particularly interested in hearing anything about me. My life, I mean... Most of it doesn't add up to much that I could relate as a way of life that you'd approve of... I'd like to be able to tell you why, but I don't really... I mean, I move around a lot because things tend to get bad when I stay. And I'm looking... for auspicious beginnings, I guess... I'm trying to, you know, imagine your half of this conversation... My feeling is, that if you could talk, we probably wouldn't be talking. That's pretty much how it got to be before... I left... Are you all right? I don't know what to say... Tita suggested that we try to... I don't know. I think that she... seems to feel we've got... some understanding to reach... She totally denies the fact that we were never that comfortable with each other to begin with... The best that I can do, is apologize. We both know that I was never really that good at it, anyway...

[sobbing]

The title of the film refers to the name of a Piano book for beginners. There is no better person to play a role like this and one could even say Jack Nicholson got himself typecast by playing too many of these sort of roles. This film was quite significant as a breakout performance for Jack Nicholson  but he displayed more range playing his role in 'Easy Rider' which came before this. Performance by Karen Black is also excellent as the easily pushed around partner. The only other film I have seen from the director is his remake of 'Postman Always Ring Twice, also featuring Jack Nicholson, and it was just about decent at best.

Rating: 4/5

                                                                             

Mad Max (1979)

Director: George Miller
Writers:   James McCausland, George Miller, Byron Kennedy
Cast:        Mel Gibson, Joanne Samuel, High Keays-Byrne

A vengeful Australian policeman sets out to avenge his partner, his wife and his son in a dystopian setting. The bad guys are a biker-gang and as the poster says-it stars Mel Gibson and a bunch of other guys. It was made for a budget of A$400,000 and made $100 million at the box office and held the record for being the most profitable film for twenty years, which it eventually passed onto Blair Witch Project, and thus spawning the Mad Max Franchise.

It is basically the origins story of what turned out to be a franchise. The plot is laughably basic and writing is absolute cringe. I almost resorted to fast forwarding through the film by about forty five minutes but at that point it kind of became a little bit coherent and I sat through the film. I read somewhere that the Australian voices were dubbed over with a much more US accent for its US release and the former is supposed to be miles better. I am not hundred percent sure as to whether I watched the Australian version but it did sound so even though the audio was out of sync. That might be more to do with the file that I watched which was very small for a x264. The action scenes are very well done in terms of how they were shot and most of the violence is off-screen. But those things don't quite salvage the film for me as the acting is laughably bad even from Mel Gibson, for whom it was a breakthrough role. I understand it is not about acting, characters, writing etc but watching it is a real slog.

Another one in the Mad Max franchise is coming out this year titled 'Fury Road'. It is directed by George Miller, starring Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron, and the visuals indeed look stunning from the trailer. Out of the Mel Gibson films, the second one in the series titled 'Road Warrior' is supposed to be the best and I am gonna give it a chance even though I absolutely hated the first one. Hopefully bigger budget and better writing means a far better film.

Rating: 1.5/5

                                                                        

Harold and Maude (1971)

Director: Hal Ashby
Writer:    Colin Higgins
Cast:       Ruth Gordon, Bud Cort, Vivian Pickles

Young, rich and obsessed with death, Harold finds himself changed forever when he meets lively septuagenarian Maude at a funeral. Harold's mother with her bourgeoisie lifestyle don't take much effort in understanding Harold and he likes to fake his own death in return. It is not the kind where the kid is trying to get attention. Maude very much has the hippie like lifestyle and thinking when it comes to liberty, authority and attitude. She has a set of keys that her carjacking husband left her with which she uses to take rides in whatever vehicle that she finds fancy. Both Harold and Maude like Hearses very much.

It must have caused a stir when it got released because of the romantic angle of the story between the teenager Harold and the 79 year old Maude. I guess it would have been edgy even for today's audience as well. I very much felt like how I felt when watching 'The Graduate'- must have been great when it got released but haven't aged that gracefully. All this hippie sort of outlook has become very cliched by now but it really shouldn't be used to find fault with this film considering that it got released in Nixon America. It is a very good watch without being all that great and the melancholic music is again something we have got very used to. 

It didn't do well either commercially or critically when it got released but developed a cult following gradually over the years. I suspect it must have influenced directors like Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach in terms of their style and quirkiness. I guess one can watch it if you are fans of those directors to see what must have been a landmark film for them.

Rating: 3.5/5 

                                                                      

Le Genou de Claire (Claire's Knee) (1970)

Director: Eric Rohmer
Writer:    Eric Rohmer
Cast:       Jean-Claude Brialy, Aurora Cornu, Beatrice Romand, Laurence de Monaghan
Language:French

On a holiday, a conflicted man lusts after beautiful stepsisters despite his betrothal to a diplomat's daughter. As the testimonial in the film's attached poster says, any attempt to explain the film with words will just diminish it just like the previous sentence did.

Jerome is spending his last holidays as a bachelor at Lake Annecy where he meets Aurora, an Italian writer and old friend. She tells him that her landlady's youngest daughter, Laura, has a crush on him and talks him into flirting him with her just to prove that he is interesting enough to be a subject for her in her writings. He claims that he is doing it just for her like a guinea pig but eventually falls for Laura's half-sister Claire and develops a desire to caress her knee. All this to give his writer-friend some interesting ideas and source material. All this is interspersed with chatter on love, friendship, importance of friendship in love, which comes first or should there be an order, analysis of feelings etc. 

Eric Rohmer is not for everyone but if you like Richard Linklater's 'Before Trilogy' then this should be right up your alley. Unlike Linklater films, there is at the same time a rawness as well as artificiality in some of the dialog which might sound contradictory. It had to do with the writer character but after I saw the film I came to know that she is supposed to be Italian which explains her French accent and the slow way in which she delivers it. Jerome might very well be using her as an excuse to push the boundaries. Film has got lots of subtle humor which can be contrasted with Kubrick's Lolita which is another one that dealt with similar kind of relationship at least in terms of age difference. I can't see a film like Claire's Knee coming out these days since it treads a fine line between teenage crush and pedophilia and this ambiguity will attract criticism if it was released now. The conversations between the writer and Jerome reminded me of Lars Von Trier's 'Nymphomaniac' even though the subjects are very different.   

Film is fifth one in Rohmer's 'Six Moral Stories' series. The only other film I have seen from Rohmer so far is 'A Summer's Tale' and I thought that was great as well but is more ambiguous. One thing I have noticed in the film is Rohmer lingering the camera on the character who is listening with a delayed attention on one who is talking. I intend to watch his other major works. He was a prolific director and made his last film in 2007 at an age of 87. He died in 2010 at the age of 90.

Rating: 5/5

Le Cercle Rouge (1970)

Director: Jean-Pierre Melville
Writer:    Jean-Pierre Melville
Cast:       Alain Delon, Bourvil, Gian Maria Volonte
Language: French

After leaving prison, master thief Corey(Alain Delon) crosses pass with a notorious escapee (Volonte) and an alcoholic former Policeman who is also an expert marksman. The trio proceed to plot an elaborate heist even as the Commissioner of Police is making plans to catch the escapee.

The film starts with the following: 

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, drew a circle with a piece of red chalk and said: "When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever the diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle."

It really didn't look like something Buddha would say and that turned out to be true since Melville made the whole thing up, like he did in his masterpiece-'Le Samourai'.  He just made that up to give some philosophical underpinning to the things that happen in the film even though it makes no fucking sense. The three men in question as per the quote are the Commissioner of Police, Corey and the escapee. They inadvertently cross path with each other in the beginning parts of the film and by a matter of chance do the same at its climax sequence. No elaborate back story is given to any of the main characters and there is no justifying reasons given to commit the heist. Still we root for the criminals and are saddened by the end, when it goes tits up during the fence portion of the heist. The moralizing tone of older films is something that I always have gripe with and in this film it kind of inverts it by making us feel saddened by their fate even though they are for whom we should ideally have no sympathy. This is achieved with minimal dialog between the criminals but one has to say their behavior towards each other is noble and mannerisms minimalistically stylish, which is in contrast with the Commissioner.

The film is very self-aware and at many points it has got characters thinking out loud for the audience (Corey and the marksman discussing about the bullet the latter used to disable the alarm system, for eg). Film's highlight would of course be the twenty five minutes heist scene without any words spoken. This will of course get compared to the French classic heist procedural from the 50s-'Rififi' which also featured a 32 minute heist sequence without dialog or music. Melville had conceived the idea to make a heist film in the 50s but delayed it due to the success of 'Asphalt Jungle' and 'Rififi'. In Rififi, it was the human mistrust that leads to their downfall which is often the case in film noir. That cliched aspect is also conspicuous by its absence in Melville's film. Michael Mann's 'Thief' is another one which I loved and in that film also it was during the 'Fence' portion of the heist that things go awry. 

To sum up, it is a slow burning heist procedural with a running time of close to 140 minutes. If you are a fan of heist films or procedurals or of Melville, it is a must watch. I didn't like very much Melville's 'Army of Shadows' when I watched it for the first time. Would like to check it out again since the slow burn aspect with minimal dialog of Melville films is something that I have got familiarized by now.

Rating: 4.5/5

The Gambler (1974)

Director: Karel Reisz
Writer:    James Toback
Cast:       James Caan, Paul Sorvino, Lauren Hutton

Alex Freed is a literature professor. He has the gambling addiction. When he has lost all his money, he borrows from his girlfriend, then his mother and finally some bad guy that starts chasing him. Despite all this he cannot stop gambling.

Film is semi-autobiographical based on James Toback who also was a professor with gambling problem. It is also seen as a loose adaptation of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's short story 'The Gambler'. One would expect a thrilling humorous film if you go by the title in similar lines to 'The Sting'. It is anything but. It reminded me of 'The Hustler', which was also a very serious film that I also went in thinking it would be a light one. It is a serious look at Gambling addiction  and posits that the addicts are people who look for prospects of losing to give them the fix of uncertainty associated with it. Freed himself says that he let go off bets that he knows has a high chance of winning in favor of longer odds one that would give him the necessary fix of uncertainty and pain. If that is not clear enough for the audience, you have got the end sequence of him behaving in a destructive manner at a non-gambling scenario when his gambling debts are on the clear. The film plays with the audience expectations giving them a protagonist who doesn't give them anything to root for and when the debts are cleared, we are also as uncomfortable as him since it ended up corrupting him. 

I don't know how credible this portrayal is for gambling addicts as a whole but at least it was like that for James Toback, who wrote the screenplay. It is getting remade by Rupert Wyatt (Mark Wahlberg as lead) after a Scorsese-DiCaprio remake project fell through. James Caan starring 'The Gambler' is a great watch with it being an adult look at gambling addiction without any glorification.

Rating: 4/5

The Long Goodbye (1973)

Director: Robert Altman
Writers:  Leigh Brackett, Raymond Chandler (Novel)
Cast:       Elliott Gould, Nina van Pallandt, Sterling Hayden

"I have two friends in the world. One is a cat. The other is a murderer". Detective Philip Marlowe tries to help a friend who is accused of murdering his wife.

The film is an adaptation of Raymond Chandler's 1953 novel with the same name. The time period was updated from 1950 to 1970s Hollywood and there were some significant changes to the original story when it was adapted to the screen, especially the ending. Philip Marlowe in the film is a throwback to older times where loyalty counted for something. In the time period the film is set in, Marlowe is kind of anachronistic being surrounded by people who are selfish and are out there only for themselves. The very first scene of the film establishes the character with him going out at three in the morning to get his cat the exact brand of cat food that it eats. Ultimately, it is loyalty that dictates how he reacts at the end when he pieces it all together to find out that he was just used. 

Even without the last sequence of the film, which is more of an exposition, I was able to kind of piece it all together except the money part. In that sense they could have done without the last act which is a significant change from the book, but it is in keeping with the loyalty theme of the film. The gangster Marty Augustine and his shenanigans were not there in the book but it is a worthy addition, in spite of the confusion it creates, because it is really brilliant. It kind of reminded me of Joe Pesci in Goodfellas.

It is another one of those films that I discovered through RAWK where a discussion on Polanski's 'Chinatown' was going on and 'The Long Goodbye' was cited as a superior version of it and it came ahead of it. I can see that argument. I love Chinatown but it now kind of feels like a bigger budget and more star studded version of the long goodbye. Elliott Gould is brilliant as Philip Marlowe and I also enjoyed Sterling Hayden as the drunk writer, Roger Wade.

Robert Altman usually makes film that are at least two and hours long but this one comes under two hours and it is a neo-noir classic. He is certainly someone who has influenced a lot of the directors who came after him as well many of his peers.If you are a fan of film noir or you liked Chinatown, then it is a must watch film.

Rating: 5/5

Sorcerer (1977)

Director: William Friedkin
Writers:  Walon Green, Georges Arnaud
Cast:       Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, Amiduo

Four unfortunate men from different parts of the globe living in exile in South America agree to risk their lives transporting gallons of nitroglycerin across dangerous South American jungle. 

South American road films are always a good watch when it comes from very good directors. Motorcycle Diaries, Aguirre: Wrath of God and Fitzcarraldo are some that I really love. Sorcerer is more close to Fitzcarraldo than the other two which are more philosophical or political in nature. In Fitzcarraldo, Kinsky is motivated by an uplifting cause, but in Sorcerer motivation for the characters is the desperate nature of their situation. The first half of the film is an elaborate foreplay (reminded me of 13 Assassins) which trots across Mexico, Jerusalem, Paris and New Jersey showing us small back-stories for the four characters. Their exiled life in Porvenir, a remote village in South America is hellish and when they are offered this suicidal job for good money, they show no hesitation in taking it. The 218 miles journey is treacherous as one would expect and there are many set-pieces to be had. They are really breathtaking despite the fact that you are expecting those kind of stuff. Even the trucks have a certain character and the title of the film comes from one of them. The matter of fact ending of the film is also great stressing the fact that we humans are not in control of our situation. The last scene is very predictable but is done in a cool way. That guy really looks like Graeme Souness.

Film was a big budget disaster at box office and it also got poor critical reception. It got released close to Star Wars and that is cited as a reason for its poor theatrical run. This is also marked as the turning point at which the studio system veered a great deal towards the block-buster kind of films. Sorcerer now holds a cult status and many of the critics who criticized it when it got relased have changed their tune. In this era of CGI shitfest where films rarely make us feel excited by action/adventure, Sorcerer is a great watch since you know that these guys did it for real rather than getting hung in front of a green screen. Friedkin has also been linked to directing an episode of True Detective Season-2 and he will be perfect. Hope he does the whole season.

Rating: 4/5

The Parallax View (1974)

Director: Alan J. Pakula
Writers:  David Giler, Lorenzo Semple Jr., Loren Singer
Cast:       Warren Beatty, Paula Prentiss, William Daniels

An ambitious reporter gets in way-over-his-head trouble while investigating a senator's assassination which leads to a vast conspiracy involving a multinational corporation behind every event in the world headlines.

America in the early 70s was a ripe place for Paranoia thrillers with the conspiracy theories behind JFK assassination and the Watergate scandal. This film is the second one of Pakula's 'Paranoia Trilogy' with 'Klute' preceding it and 'All the President's Men' coming next. All the President's Men is an all time classic and besides it I have seen Pakula's 'The Pelican Brief' which was rather forgettable. Parallax View reminded me of 'The Conversation' and 'The Chinatown' both of which were released the same year and are vastly superior films. Parralax View has its moments but overall it is kind of flawed and has not aged particularly well.

Rating: 3/5

The Passenger (1975)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:  Mark Peploe, Peter Wollen, Michelangelo Antonioni
Cast:      Jack Nicholson, Maria Schneider, Jenny Runacre

A journalist in Africa fakes his own death by swapping identities with a dead arms dealer and proceeds to keep his appointments in various cities in Europe. 

It is another masterpiece from Antonioni dealing with alienation which is a recurring theme in his films. It is the third and final English film he to fulfill his contract with the producer Carlo Ponti. Cinematography is excellent.There is a particular scene in which the girl he encounters in Spain asks him what he is running away from, he asks her to sit with her back against the driving seat, and as they drive through the road laden with trees on either side, the shot of a smiling Maria Schneider is exquisite. The scene is to signify that David Locke, the journalist is running away from his past. He looked unhappy and demotivated as he was slogging away in Africa covering a guerrilla revolution. It is significant that the character is named after the English philosopher John Locke, whose theory of mind is often cited as the origin of modern concepts of identity and the self. He was the first to define self as the continuity of consciousness. At birth the mind is a blank state and knowledge is instead determined only through experiences. The character is trying to start again with a clean slate by assuming the identity of a person about whom he doesn't know much. By keeping his appointments he is in the process of putting himself in danger to learn the unknown which is again what he was doing in his career as a journalist. In that sense he cannot run away from his past and falls back to doing what he has always done. 

The ending scene at hotel where Locke is assassinated in a Spanish hotel at twilight is a seven minutes single shot. The film was not universally well received at the time of its release with many critics including Roger Ebert considering it to be pretentious. It is my favorite Antonioni film with an understated performance  by his standards from Jack Nicholson.

Rating: 5/5

Cet obscur objet du désir (That Obscure Object of Desire) (1977)

Director: Luis Bunuel
Writers:  Luis Bunuel, Jean-Claude Carriere, Pierre Louys
Cast:      Fernando Rey, Carole Bouquet, Angela Molina
Language: French/Spanish

The film tells the story of an aging French man Mathieu who falls in love with a young Spanish woman Conchita who repeatedly frustrates his romantic and sexual desires. It is set in Spain and France against the backdrop of terrorist insurgency. The story is shown as a flashback told by Mathieu  to his fellow passengers during a train ride from Seville to Madrid.

There are two actresses playing the role of Conchita with them switching throughout the film and even during the middle of some scenes. Bunuel suggested this idea playfully to the producer after the filming was halted due to an actress leaving the film.The relation between Mathieu and Conchita is very manipulative and it isn't clear who is manipulating who. One should wonder about the truthfulness with which Mathieu is narrating the story to his fellow passengers because he seems to get a lot of sympathy from them even though from what is shown to us he doesn't warrant it.

This was Luis Bunuel's last film and many directors tend to dabble with films about films and storytelling towards the latter part of their careers. This is one such film.

Rating: 4/5

Zabriskie Point (1970)

Director: Michelangelo Antonioni
Writers:  Michelangelo Antonioni, Fred Gardner, Sam Shepard, Tonino Guerra, Clare Peploe
Cast:       Mark Frechette, Daria Halprin, Paul Fix

The film is set in late 60s' America's counterculture movement and is the second in Antonioni's group of films that were part of his three English films contract with Carlo Ponti. It begins with documentary style footage of a revolutionary student gathering followed by scenes of a student protest in which a cop is killed. The protagonist Mark  is suspected for the shooting and even as he casually strolls round Los Angeles, he ends up stealing a private plane from an airport and makes his way to the desert. In the desert he meets Daria, an anthropology student, who is helping a property developer build a housing project in the desert where you can get away from the crowded city life and enjoy a rugged but comfortable lifestyle. They together gets on her car and drives to the Zabriskie Point, Death Valley. There they fool around talking and ultimately have sex in the sand. They then go back to the plane, repaint it Hippy psychedelic style and Mark decides to take it back to the city. He is shot dead when he lands and Daria gets to her Boss's lavish desert home where he is in discussion about the property development. In her grief she decides to turn back even as she imagines the home to be blown up from various angles. The scene is similar to the earlier sex scene in the sand where various other imaginary people are shown to be having fun in the sand.

The film is an indictment of American way of life and development with no sense of humor. Mark represents the carefree youth of the counterculture movement while Daria is someone who got over it by being pragmatic and at the same time being conflicted about it. The film was a huge commercial and critical failure but is now considered as a cult favorite. I just wish it was a bit more subtle in its treatment. 

Rating: 3.5/5