048 - The American Friend

Synopsis: Picture restorer / frame-maker in Hamburg is conned into murdering 2 men

Director: Wim Wenders

Actors: Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz, Nicholas Ray, Sam Fuller

Date: 1977

How viewed: Watched lovefilm online

Rating: 5/5

David Meyer says:

Wenders' best films are astonishing hybrids of American energy and European artiness. That's no easy trick .. The result is a modern cinematic landmark.  

I say:

Patricia Highsmith's anti-hero (conman, murderer) Tom Ripley appears in 5 of her books, and this film is mainly an adaptation of Ripley's Game. I had a feeling I'd seen this film before, and not liked it, but I was completely wrong - I hadn't seen it (strange, as I really like Hopper and Wenders) and it was great! The Ripley film I have seen is  'The Talented Mr Ripley', with Matt Damon as Ripley (which I definitely didn't like), but there's another version of Ripley's Game with John Malkovich which might be worth digging out (and another version of 'Talented' titled 'Plein Soleil' with Alain Delon, and also 'Ripley Under Ground' with Barry Pepper) - but anyway back to The American Friend. The plot's a bit complicated (I had to watch the beginning again to sort out a couple of things!) but suffice to say that when Ripley (Hopper) is asked to repay a favour by killing a couple of criminals he passes the job to Zimmerman (Ganz) a picture framer (who has a life threatening illness) who is willing to take on the jobs for a large sum of money to leave to his wife and child. Of course it all goes a bit pear-shaped! Hooper, you sense, as always, plays himself, charming and funny one minute, raging psychopath the next, God love him! Hamburg looks suitably moody, the scene in the train is pure Hitchcock (or rather, I now realise, pure Highsmith), and there's the added bonus of spotting cameos by various film directors, most notably Nicholas Ray and Sam Fuller. Makes you want to see (and compare and contrast) the other Ripley films, and read the novels!!

047 - Sorcerer

Synopsis: Remake of Wages of Fear (see blog 017) 4 down-and-outs drive 2 trucks loaded with nitroglycerin across the jungle, swamps and rivers of S America. 

Director: William Friedkin

Actors: Roy Schneider, Bruno Cremer

Date: 1977

How viewed: Bought (region 1) DVD

Rating: 2/5

David Meyer says:

.. Friedkin put every dime onto the screen. It fairly glistens, lit with piercing, glowing blues under an action-movie sheen of diamond hard white light. 

I say:

The original film 'The Wages of Fear' (hereinafter known as TWoF), has numerous faults, but disappointingly, this remake fails to improve almost any aspect! The first half of TWoF depicts the squalid life the 4 men now lead, and drags on too long, but in Sorcerer there is even an added section at the start (covering the back-stories, which is completely unnecessary), and the middle section (in the back-of-beyond village) doesn't really convince. Once the drive begins (which is where both films could really have started) TWoF developed the main characters and their relationships (Sorcerer doesn't), the problems they come across (especially the wooden section of road) are nerve-wrecking (Sorcerer just doesn't rack up the tension) and the ending is great (Sorcerer's is strange!). Sorcerer benefits from the score by Tangerine Dream (though sometimes it distracts), and the rope bridge section is (nearly) brilliant, but I didn't warm to the characters (particularly Roy Schneider), the editing is weird (you don't see what happens to the 2nd truck at the end of the rope bridge), there's a strange moon-scape psychedelic sequence towards the end, and the title is stupid (it's the name of one of the trucks, glimpsed for a millisecond at one point)! The only good thing about Sorcerer is that it made me go back and watch TWoF again! 

046 - Homicide

Synopsis: Jewish cop questions his identity and loyalty

Director: David Mamet

Actors: Joe Mantegna, William H Macy

Date: 1990

How viewed: Lovefilm rental

Rating: 3/5

David Meyer says:

A harrowing, suspenseful mixture of cop stuff and philosophy, one of the Ten Best Films of 1990, and one of the sadly neglected films of the last decade.

I say:

This is a rather sad film about an outsider, a cop who doesn't fit in with his colleagues, a Jew who doesn't acknowledge his Jewishness, and who constantly makes poor, and sometimes fatal, decisions. It starts off as a cop film, with Mantegna and Macy about to pull off a major coup by tracking down a major drug dealer / cop killer, but Mantegna gets pulled into another case, the murder of an old Jewish woman shop-keeper. As he gets drawn deeper into the woman's friends and family, he starts to question his loyalty, which leads to him having to making choices between the cops and the Jews. I feel it could have been a much more powerful piece, especially given the major twist at the end, which throws the whole storyline up into the air, but it's hard to engage with the characters and there's a lack of logic to the story. Also, irritatingly, a lot of the film is shot at night, or in dark warehouses, so half the time it's difficult to know what's going on!! Incidentally I watched the last episode of 'The Killing II' on TV last night, and it would be good sometime to watch a cop film/series where the detectives actually slowly and carefully interview the suspects and put together the jigsaw, instead of running off in all directions following wild geese, or just don't seem interested, or don't ask logical questions - perhaps I should go back to watching Poirot or NCIS...     

045 - Withnail and I

Synopsis: A delightful weekend in the country, not!

Director: Bruce Robinson

Actors: Richard E Grant, Paul McGann, Richard Griffiths, Ralph Brown

Date: 1986

How viewed: Already in my collection

Rating: 4/5

David Meyer says:

Non-stop breathtakingly articulate word play, characters you know from life but have never seen before on the screen; dialogue you will repeat to your friends for months; and the least stupid dope jokes you ever heard. 

I say:

Over the years, I've watched this at least 3 times, and have moved from liking it 'not at all', to 'a little' and now to 'quite a bit', but I'm still not sure it deserves it's cult classic status. I realise now that it's Bruce Robinson's Wednesday Play (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wednesday_Play) - in the late 60's The Wednesday Play made us all potential play-writers - it was said that everyone in London had an idea, or a half-written script, for one - mine was based on a day I had in Hastings with Fred, Jane and Carole - and, essentially for a Wednesday Play, it tried to reflect 'a day in the life' in which nothing much happened!  In 'Withnail and I' two neurotic, paranoid and alcoholic out of work actors living in grey, depressing, rainy London escape to grey, depressing, rainy Cumbria for a weekend, but of course they cope even worse with the conditions there (or gay Uncle Monty's predatory advances - 'we've gone on holiday by mistake') and return a.s.a.p. It's a complete antithesis of the portrayal of swinging 60's London, but, as Danny (the drug dealer) says 'The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over' and the 70's approach (incidentally the way Danny speaks just seems to be the prototype for every on-screen laid-back doped-up dealer ever since!). I don't recall London being that grim though - the film is set a month or 2 after the first moon landing (July 20th in the US, 21st in London) and I remember sitting up half the night in the flat I shared in Bayswater (not a million miles from Withnail's Camden) to watch the live grainy TV picture of something indistinguishable happening somewhere unimaginable, which nevertheless made anything seem possible. However, the fact that I can remember it probably indicates that I did not take enough drugs...

044 - Putney Swope

Synopsis: Underground 60's film satirising the advertising industry, black power, etc

Director: Robert Downey Snr

Actors: Arnold Johnson, Antonio Fargas

Date: 1969

How viewed: Bought via Amazon

Rating: 3/5

David Meyer says:

Maybe 'Putney's' appeal lies in the ad parodies, the fast-as-lightning (and often unintelligible) repartee, the irrepressible 'underground;' spirit, and the unforgettable punch lines .. or, depending on your sensibilities, maybe not.

I say:

The producer, writer and director of this film was Robert Downey Snr (father of Robert Downey Jnr, but perhaps you could have worked that out for yourselves..) who was a pioneer of the underground film movement in the US in the 60's. I guess you could define 'Underground films' as avant-garde, because they were (they are?) clandestine, subversive and/or out of the mainstream in terms of style, genre or financing.  Certainly Putney Swope (the name of the main character) was made on a tiny budget, with unknown actors and an improvised script. Partially as a result of all that, it is a difficult film to review, because it's not at all clear sometimes what's going on or what the message is. Nevertheless if you can relax into the mayhem, it is very enjoyable. When the elderly founder of an advertising agency suddenly dies, the board accidentally votes the music director, a black guy, in as the new chairman. He immediately sacks the board and replaces them with his black brethren, and vows to revolutionise the agency, renaming it 'Truth and Soul' and refusing to work with cigarette, alcohol or war toys  companies, and by making completely off-the-wall adverts. The ads are initially successful (interestingly the film is in black and white, but the ads are shown in colour), but slowly the old ways seep back in, and finally he takes the money and runs. It's fairly messy (even the main character's voice is dubbed, by the director, Downey), and extremely non-PC, but that's all part of the appeal, and Fargas (well before Starsky and Hutch) is worth the admission for his constant rants!