My Intro to Film

To be honest, I’ve seen One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Milos Forman 1975)before. But I decided that it deserved revisiting when I saw that it would only be on Instant Netflix for two more days. 

Randall “Mac” McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) enters a mental hospital after a series of infractions at the penitentiary (he had several charges, but the most serious seemed to be statutory rape). During his first group meeting, he learns that he can’t really be sure of how to act or react to the patients in his ward.

But still he tries to introduce a sense of normalcy to these men’s lives. He flails around the recreation yard trying to teach Chief (Will Sampson) basketball. He tries his patience by playing Black Jack with the guys. And he learns something important: the patients of the ward are absolutely human but are being treated like animals.

Very shortly after his arrival, Mac finds a goal to pursue: making life hell for Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who runs the ward. She loves order and tightly followed schedules, and Mac wants to infuse a little confusion to her life.

Disruption ensues, and Nurse Ratched finds the new patient to be a constant pain. But for the patient, Mac brings a sense of happiness and camaraderie that they had never experienced.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, both in book and film, gives a haunting impression of what it’s like to be considered socially inadequate or crazy. It teaches compassion and provides a sense of what does and doesn’t make sense: not allowing patients to watch the World Series proves rather inhumane while an impromptu fishing trip provides a therapeutic release. 

Jack Nicholson had a difficult job in portraying Mac. A troubling ruffian who puts on an act of mental insanity to get out of prison. But his socialization compared to the others in the ward make it difficult to interact and find a routine. Slowly, the constant outbreaks and the punishment for his outcries against injustices become too much for Mac to handle. Nicholson expertly navigates through the various levels of sanity so that the audience is always left wondering, can he survive this?

Watching Westerns promised one of the biggest challenges of this AFI mission. I thought this would come from my history with Westerns. It turns out that I just don’t like Westerns all that much. I tried to like Stagecoach(1939, John Ford), I really did, but the almost too simplistic plot with some questionable acting made the experience a little too… forgettable.

My father and my grandfather loved watching them when I was little, and I couldn’t follow the complexities of their plots. All I knew was that there were good people and bad people and that the movies were almost always in black and white. Boring for a 6-year-old girl who watched Beauty and the Beast several times a week.

I was hoping that maybe my film taste had matured since then. It has been 15 years since I was six, and I’d like to think that I’ve watched and enjoyed enough films that I

hated when young that I could find the merit of Westerns.

In the case of Stagecoach, I was, at least, able to follow the storyline:

The passengers include a lower class woman, a drunken doctor, a whiskey salesman, a pregnant upper-class woman in search of her husband in the Army, a man obsessed and in love with this woman, and a dishonest bank owner. They have trouble getting along thanks to social prejudices as well as professional misgivings (I know I wouldn’t want to be a whiskey salesperson on a stagecoach with an alcoholic!). But things get a little trickier when the coach picks up another “passenger”– an outlaw that goes by Ringo Kid (John Wayne).  Despite his prisoner status — one of the men in charge of the coach, Curley (George Bancroft), arrests him — the other passengers take to Ringo’s amicable nature, in particular the low-class Dallas (Claire Trevor) who finds his chivalrous demeanor attractive.

But between point A and point B, the coach runs into many problems: they’re traveling across the Wild West where Geronimo and other Apache are ruling through fear. They burn down ranches and attack unarmed coaches. And Ringo and Curley must find a way to keep everyone safe.

Lasting a mere 96 minutes, the film feels incomplete. The characters are shallow, the action brief, the intricacies non-existent. Everything is so obvious from the class and racial prejudices to the romantic developments to the big twist. Western films, I suppose, aren’t created to make a grand social and political statement– they were made for mere entertainment so that audiences could see good prevail and the bad (i.e. any enemy to the U.S.) fail.

Yeah, I sound pretentious. I’m saying I want more than good versus evil in my films. I want social commentary. I want opinion-challenging arguments. I want to think. I’m a pretentious film snob who really shouldn’t be. I have to work on that. I have to work on enjoying the entertainment of watching a man slowly drink his way through another’s potential salary. I have to appreciate that sometimes a film doesn’t have to make a grand statement, and enjoy the story that it’s supposed to be.

I will say that I didn’t hate watching Stagecoach. There was humor. I loved Mr. Peacock and how all the other characters sweep him aside as unimportant. I even appreciated, to a certain extent, the camaraderie between Ringo and Curley. I just fail to understand why this film made it onto AFI’s Top 100 films.

I know the list contains more Westerns. I just hope they catch my interest more.

I was worried that it would be terribly uncomfortable to watch Birth of a Nation thanks to the racism. And I suppose I should have expected similar things from Guess Who’s Coming to dinner (1967, Stanley Kramer) since I knew what the film was about, but the first 20 minutes really caught me off guard.

Joanna Drayton (Katharine Houghton) is an outlandishly naïve girl whose biggest flaw is always being happy — that is until she travels to Hawaii, meets Dr. John Prentice (Sydney Poitier) and falls madly in love with him all within 10 days. Denying any problem existing, Joanna presents her black fiance to her parents. Yup. She’s white. He’s black. And they’ve known each other for 10 days. And John tells them that he requires their complete blessing to go through with the wedding.

Her parents Christina and Matt Drayton (Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy) struggle to see eye to eye on whether or not to give their approval. Christina sees only how happy her darling Joey is while Matt worries about the problems his daughter and this doctor will inevitably face. Afterall, they live in the late 1960s — 14 states still outlaw interracial marriage at this time.

While it may seem unnecessary, I feel it important to mention that this film was remade in 2005 as Guess Who, a romantic comedy starring Ashton Kutcher and Bernie Mac. Because this modern interpretation relied on the antics of the girl’s father and the groom-to-be rather than addressing the issues of race, the film falls short of the original’s impact.

While this can be contributed to the acting, the writing stands out in the Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.

William Rose, who wrote the screenplay, relied on the social climate of the era to create the tension. It (fortunately) lacked stereotypes, crazy antics or cheap tricks to make the audience feel uncomfortable.

In fact, the way the issue of interracial marriage was addressed creates an interesting dilemma for the audience: Do you agree with Christina in rejoicing for her daughter’s newly found happiness or empathize with Matt’s realization of his daughter’s naiveté and the cruelty of the 1960s society? As Matt points out to his wife, the young lovebirds have failed to calculate how long their resolve will survive with constant harassment.

As a 21st-century audience, it can be easy to categorize Matt as an ignorant racist to think that an interracial marriage could be so controversial. But this film drags you into a different world all together, into a world where the equality of races still faced legal and societal obstacles.

That’s what makes this film’s inclusion in AFI’s Top 100 so crucial to me: it successfully brings you to a different time. It knocks high-horsed liberals to the ground by reminding them that there was a time when progressive thought had its limits.

Tracy, in his last role, performs admirably while battling illness. He provides a finesse to all his lines that makes it clear that his issues with the marriage have everything to do with society and not with Dr. John Prentice himself. In fact, I found it downright hilarious how his manner toward his daughter’s fiance changes throughout the film. He greets John with jovial welcome, thinking nothing of his daughter’s new acquaintance. He then grows distrust for this man as he learns John might soon be his son-in-law. He goes as far as to have his assistant do a background check on this mysterious black man. But the distrust fades completely, and Matt fosters great respect for John as he learns more and more about the man who wants to marry his daughter. But just because John has a great resume doesn’t ease Matt’s concerns. He thinks her intended is swell, but he knows that the rest of society might see problems with their marriage. The way he treats both John and his parents make it clear that he isn’t the shell of a liberal with a racist inside, as everyone opposing his opinions call him: He’s definitely not a racist, just a man who thinks more about hardship than of happiness. In a sense, this movie revolves around him and his development, not Joanna and John.

Hepburn, however, steals the show. She plays a loving mother who wants nothing more than to see her daughter completely happy. But the shock of learning that Joanna’s happiness comes from a black man is completely apparent. Hepburn expertly navigates the role as she simultaneously expressed happiness and worry for her only child. She stands up to her husband about his stubborn ideas and stoically dismissed her employee at the first glimpse of racist sentiment. And yet, she is constantly on the verge of tears, and she delivers many of her lines towards Joanna and John in a calculating manner, as though she’s nervous of what might slip if she’s not careful.

In short, this movie is phenomenal. Its open discussion of interracial relationships creates a complex diegesis where it’s clear that racism isn’t the only barrier the Civil Rights have to get past. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” smartly implies that these relationships are not always black and white.

You’ve got the sniffles, a fever, and the chills. You cannot wait to take a sleeping pill or some cold medicine, crawl into bed, and fall into a soft, cuddly — and drug-induced — sleep.

Just as your reaching that first REM, though, your phone rings. And if you’re C.C. Baxter, it’s probably one of your bosses, drunk, horny, and looking for a place to take his lady. And since you’re C.C. Baxter, your feeble indignation fails so that soft, cuddly sleep has to wait.

Favorite Line: "I told you I have to meet someone, Jeff." "And I told you I love you." --Fran and Jeff

The Apartment (1960 Billy Wilder) tells this story of Baxter (Jack Lemmon), whose bosses at his insurance company, love (and take advantage of) the convenience of Baxter’s nearby apartment. Afterall, they’re from the ‘burbs and have nowhere to take their dates when they’re out on the town. The demands that these executives make, and exactly what Baxter tolerates is over-the-top.

In fact it’s almost intolerable for the audience to see him bear all this with a meager smile. Though it’s meant to be comical and light-hearted, it actually brings the audience a darker message, a message of the selfishness of the nature of humanity.

THERE. That’s what the film wants to show the audience: Humanity is selfish, but love is not. But it’s not as overtly stated (or light-hearted) as that might sound.

It’s an interesting message though, that humanity is selfish. It’s not quite one that people want to hear. But the way that Wilder does so is beautiful because it is sent through depictions and caricatures of what people can accept as normal. The cheating husband? The ambitious employee? The floozy mistress? The hopeless one. They’re all people we know exist. The Apartment just provides you a look at what happens because of them.

Unfortunately (for the film), I saw Promises, Promises (the Broadway show based on this film) before seeing this. And I liked the play better. For one, Sean Hayes makes a much better C.C. Baxter. And the chemistry between Hayes and Sarah Jane Everman (Kristen Chenoweth had a tracheal infection when I went. Disappointing? Not in the least! The understudy was utterly fantastic!) was so much better than between Lemon and Shirley MacLaine.

In the Apartment, Ms. Kubelik (MacLaine) never seems to warm up to C.C. through the entire film, even after a huge event throws them into close companionship. I felt rather bad for both characters because C.C. really just wanted to earn the affections of the short-haired elevator operator, and Kubelik seemed to be bothered by his constant banter.

But the story is great. It’s not about some outlandish event. No, instead it’s about

the effects of something that happens everyday, and its effects on everyone involved in all sorts of ways. But rather than take a comical approach to this, Wilder chooses to show the darker side of things. He doesn’t shy away from dealing with issues of abandonment, depression and even suicide in the same film that jokes about sexuality and the bachelor life. It shows that life’s not full of games and laughter — it shows people, especially the Jeff Sheldrakes of the world how miserable their actions can make other people and even themselves.

I don’t know if this is the type of film to be watched over and over. It’s a good story that you can probably find nuances in as you watch it more and more, but there’s also a sad quality to the movie that would make it a un-enjoyable repeat. Definitely not in my “To Buy” list. But great to watch.

I just bid on Essie nail polish on Ebay.
I really hope I win.

No wonder I had never seen The Godfather (1972, directed by Francis Ford Coppola) before. It’s long! Nearly 3 hours, and it’s a slow 3 hours. Slow, but so good!

One of the top mafia families in the country, the Corleones, is enjoying life and business. Its head, Don Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando) can make anything happen for those who offer him loyal friendship. He has his ways, and he and his cronies always think of one those persuasive and irrefusable offers. But when he decides to refuse  a favor to a guy looking for protection as he ventures into a new business, Don Corleone launches a blody feud among the most powerful mafia families. We , as the audience, get to watch the inner workings to see how everyone reacts and behaves under the drama. In particular, the film follows Michael (Al Pacino), the youngest Corleone son, because he has never wanted to go into the family business, but circumstances change his fate.

The movie has always conjured the image of Marlon Brando. Despite never having seen the film before, I could hear Don Coleone’s raspy, whispery voice saing, “Im gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” So I was shocked to discover how relatively small his role was. Sure the character is vitally important to the tory, but really, the film was about Michael’s reluctant but ceaseless loyalty to his family and the family business.

Michael at his sister's wedding

And while it’s understandable why Brando is celebrated for this role — he completely throws himself into the role and commits to all the physical and emotional attributions of an aging man who’s had to deal with years of constant strategizing, both protective and offensive — I don’t know why Pacino is not given more credit or associated with the film as much. I marveled at how elegantly he portrayed the moral struggle he faced having to choose between what he wanted to become and what he was born to be. At the beginning of the film, I didn’t even recognize Pacino as Michael. There was something so young and innocent about him (actually, I thought that he and a young Dustin Hoffman could be related), that just morphed throughout the film. And it wasn’t due to make-up. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a physical transformation in a character like that without the use of make-up before, and I was blown away.

Michael later in the movie

While the general plot is easy to understand, the movie, I found, could be rather confusing at times. Time jumped forward without any indicator of what time period we were in. I found myself removing myself from the film only to try to calculate how long has passed between certain events or how long something has lasted. This is probably where the slow feeling came from because I kept pulling myself from the diegesis, rather than relishing the great story and superb dialogue. If I didn’t need to worry about making timelines in my head, I might have been more enraptured and the three hours would have flown by more easily.
Because of this and the fact that it’s a movie for a thinking audience, I recommend you set aside a day to watch this when you won’t mind sitting in one spot for so long.

I don’t think I ever considered myself someone who liked mafia/gangster movies, but I’m thinking I may have to rethink that. While I was excited to see the The Godfather Part 1 (And really Part 2 too) because of its reputation, I am now excited for another reason. I’m looking forward to watching Part 2 next weekend because I want to see what’s next for the Corleone family and Michael. I want to find out how different personalities cope with new situation — who bends, who breaks, and who perseveres.