Film and Literature

1. “Elevator to the Gallows” Louis Malle, 1958 (France) French director Louis Malle’s first film Elevator to the Gallows begins with a beautiful, stylized close-up of actress Jeanne Moreau’s face, her two eyes resonate like stars in a cloudless sky. “I’m the one who can’t take any more. I love you,” she says as the camera slowly pulls away, revealing that she is on the phone with her lover – the man who is to murder her husband. With that, the viewer is introduced to the simple, yet effective plot of Malle’s foray into the film noir genre. The film was made just on the fringe of the New Wave movement and includes many techniques that are later revisited by Godard and Truffaut, among others. Perhaps what is most notable about Malle’s first work is the camera-work. The lamp-lit streets of Paris at night are photographed in a stylized light, and set to a sad, but cool, careerdefining soundtrack by trumpet master, Miles Davis. Louis Malle is also said to have given Moreau her big break into national stardom with Elevator to the Gallows (she would be cast in Truffaut’s Jules et Jim just a few years later). Although she had starred in over a dozen feature-length films, no one had shot her quite like Malle did; sans makeup and in natural light.

2. “Doubt” John Patrick Shanley, 2008 (USA) The story of Doubt is set in the mid60s at a Catholic Church and school in the Bronx. The school’s principal, Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) is convinced without evidence that the head priest (Philip Seymour Hoffman) has an illicit relationship with the only black student at the school. Sister Aloysius’ witch-hunt is led solely by a new schoolteacher’s (Amy Adams) intuitions, leading to several hairraising confrontations between the three characters. With an all-star cast, it’s no surprise that the acting is overwhelmingly convincing, but the most striking scene involves an unnerving conversation between the black altar boy’s mother and Meryl Streep as they walk through the Bronx on an autumn day. This film took me by complete surprise. I was amazed that playwright John Patrick Stanley was able to pack such deep and contentious storytelling of his dramatic piece into 104 minutes. Despite the arguably short runtime, the film’s pacing is perfect, in keeping with the cold and contemplative mood of a chamber play. Doubt examines the themes of religion, race, and homosexuality, and it will surely cause you to rethink the principles of faith and doubt. The film received five academy awards – and it’s no wonder why.

3. “Hunger” Steve McQueen, 2008 (UK) Hunger is not directed by famous American movie star Steve McQueen. Rather, the film is the first masterful effort by an English auteur of the same name. The title refers to the 1981 hunger strike carried out by prisoners of the Irish Republican Army, led by Bobby Sands (played by Michael Fassbender). Let me preface the review by saying this work of art is absolutely raw and not for the faint of heart – expect explicit nudity, blood, and feces. McQueen made certain that his footage reflected the vulgar and demoralizing conditions suffered by the inmates of the historical conflict between Irish nationalists and Margaret Thatcher. The film is impressively riddled with remarkable cinematic technique, especially for a first time director – clear and crisp cinematography, recurring sound motifs, realism (Fassbender took several genuine beatings and went on a crash diet to get down to a disgustingly-thin 127 pounds), and a single shot of conversation lasting 16.5-minutes. Hunger is important both for the slice of history it chooses to examine and for its great artistic integrity – don’t let this one go unwatched! Michael Haneke is one of the hottest, most consistent filmmakers in World Cinema today. You may recognize his name from the 2007 remake of his own film, Funny Games, (starring Naomi Watts) which had a wide release in the US. His latest directorial effort, The White Ribbon, takes place from the early 1900s to the outbreak of World War I, and set in a small German village. The audience follows several prominent inhabitants of the village (schoolteacher, pastor, baron, etc.) and watches their reaction to the bizarre events happening to a number of their children. The film is shot in a black and white tone that is clearly reminiscent of legendary cinematographer Sven Nykvist’s work with Ingmar Bergman. The content is also consistent with Bergman’s sensibilities (and perhaps a reason why I’m attracted to this film) – themes include childhood, marital relationships, religion, morality, and so on. The White Ribbon primarily concerns itself with the way children in the village are raised. The title refers to a ribbon placed around the arm of a ‘misbehaved’ child. In addition to the gorgeous cinematic landscape (Haneke made the decision to switch from color to black and white), the beauty of this film is in its ambiguity. Questions about why these mysterious events are happening and who causes them are largely unanswered and remain for the audience to deliberate.

5. “Fitzcarraldo” Werner Herzog, 1982 (Germany) CinemaTalk had the fortune of screening German filmmaker Werner Herzog’s masterpiece Fitzcarraldo for the club’s second meeting. This epic film follows Irishman Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald (played by longtime Herzogregular Klaus Kinski), a man obsessed with the opera of the great tenor Enrico Caruso. Fitzcarraldo (as he is called in Peru) dreams of opening an opera house in the middle of the jungle, and he will stop at nothing until his dream comes true. To raise the funds, he purchases a parcel of rubber-producing land, as well as a 340-ton steamship, which he enlists the help of a local Indian tribe to literally pull it over a mountain. What makes this film so magical is the perpetual hell (Peruvian politics, lack of funds, actors dropping out halfway through production) Herzog had to endure in order to successfully create the film precisely as he had envisioned it. And yes, he and his crew literally pulled the boat over the mountain. Also of note is how Herzog uniquely places actors in a sort of situation and films their real, human responses. Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo includes countless remarkable shots that will stick with the viewer forever. The film reinforces the cliché that one can do anything if he puts his mind to it. Herzog and his crew have succeeded in creating a monumental film that is hard to imagine being made by anyone else.

by CHARLES PECK

Twenty five years after his death, Jorge Luis Borges remains one of the most compelling, influential writers of both modern and post-modern literature. Originally published in 1962, “Labyrinths,” a collection of his best poetry, essays and short stories illustrates every aspect of the Argentinean author’s genius. The fantastical portrayal of the struggle between real and surreal is condensed into the dreamworlds within each work of “Labyrinths,” while remaining concise and eloquent, with the aid of a good translation. Some highlights include the short story “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, which portrays a coalition of intellectuals attempting to create a new world simply through the power of imagination; and the gripping “Deutsches Requiem,” which follows the introspection of a subdirector of a Nazi concentration camp awaiting his trial and execution after the end of World War II. Creating the perfect balance between rational and emotional, real and surreal, elusive and succinct, Borges proves to be, as John Barth says, “like the great artists of other centuries [...] [engaging] the heart as well as the intelligence.”

Widely proclaimed by critics and scholars alike as the quintessential post-modern novel, Thomas Pynchon’s “Crying of Lot 49,” released in 1966, follows Oedipa Mass as she haphazardly pursues a quest to unveil a global conspiracy between two mail distributers, “Thurn and Taxis” and “Trystero.” The true story is unveiled, however, through the peculiar characters Oedipa meets along the way (her psychiatrist, Dr. Hilarius, who prescribes her LSD and the stamp specialist, Genghis Cohen, to name a few) and the coincidences which result. Through its satirical reinterpretation of the modernist detective story, Oedipa’s quest is one which parallels that of the reader, as she fluctuates between certainty and uncertainty in the evidence she’s collecting. At just 152 pages, Pynchon’s ability to condense an entire ontological discourse, as well as a captivating story, into such little space proves the author’s true genius and this book’s fundamental role in the post-modern canon.

Tom McCarthy’s latest novel, released just last year, is an experimental, modern epic drenched in philosophic and thematic material. Following young Serge Carrefax, who was born in England at the turn of the 20th century to an ambitious inventor and a deaf mother, McCarthy creates a world just as chaotic and progressive as the one Serge is involuntarily exposed to--revealed through his interactions with the Great War (WWI), recreational drugs, and the emergence of telecommunication which leads Serge to Egypt. What really makes McCarthy a great writer, and likely accounts for much of his recent commercial appeal, is his ability to create an accessible novel in spite of its peculiarity; one which is able to address the problems of post-modern literature while still prompting some sort of emotional response through its characters and their relationship with the reader (which seems to be the theme of this review’s series). Above all, it’s refreshing to know that writers like McCarthy still exist in a literary world dominated by vampires, werewolves, and Justin Bieber fan fiction.

After all of that post-modern jargon, it might be helpful to return to a true classic. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray’s brilliant Victorian novel, expertly satirizes the shameless pursuit for wealth and esteem all too common to both 19th century England, and, if not more so, to contemporary life. Following primarily two young women, Becky Sharp and Amelia Sedley have just graduated primary school, and are confronted head-on by the realities of Victorian life. Becky, a naturally independent woman, deems it only natural to pursue a wealthy husband; while Amelia, whose financial and marital particulars are spoken for, faces her fair share of personal hardships. The real appeal to the modern reader, however, is the biting criticism of classic characters we continue to see from generation to generation: Jos Sedley, the insecure older brother of Amelia who takes hours getting ready; George Osborne, the defiant son of a controlling father who shares his lust for admiration; and Miss Crawley, the rich old aunt whose favor (and inheritance) everyone fights for. Though it is lengthy, at nearly a thousand pages, Vanity Fair is guaranteed to provide new insight into both the past and present.

Ted Hughes, British Poet Laureate from 1984 until his death, in 1998, bore the unfortunate burden of both losing his wife (Sylvia Plath) and subsequently facing backlash from Plath fans and feminist literary critics who claimed he provoked her suicide. As a result, his reputation, particularly in the US, remains tainted and his work often undermined. Though his personal life warrants some degree of criticism, “Crow” is some of the best poetry of the past century and thereby noteworthy in its own right. In a sense the antipoet, Hughes creates a narrativelike structure to the collection, exposing a bleak, despairing world whose sole protagonist is the titular Crow itself. Depressing, endearing, revulting, terrifying, funny--”Crow” is a schizophrenic pastiche of nihilism, absurdum, and British wit.