GENERAL IDI AMIN DADA - #153

The subtitle to Barbet Schroeder’s 1974 documentary General Idi Amin Dada is A Self-Portrait, which seems like a misnomer, given that Schroeder was behind the camera and his titular subject, naturally, was in front. But then you watch the movie, and you see how carefully the Ugandan dictator tries to manicure his own image. Schroeder likely added the subtitle by way of acknowledging the influence and manipulation the notorious African leader was trying to exert on him. His “all access” pass only admitted him to selected areas and manufactured events.

And so we have Idi Amin the musician (indeed, he gets a “score by” credit), and Idi Amin the dancer, and Idi Amin the benevolent commander in chief visiting his troops and personally inspecting weapons. We get the military mastermind upbraiding his council with his personal philosophy of how to lead, a rambling dissemination of loosely connected ideas, a seemingly fake grandstand, until the despot slides a warning into his propaganda, slipping into genuine anger. Here is where Schroeder inserts himself, undermining the despot’s mission, by noting through narration how one of the council members singled-out would soon be fed to the crocodiles. Literally.

By going along to get along, Schroeder is shrewdly playing Idi Amin’s own game. By letting him seemingly have control, the tyrant will let down his guard and some truth will slip out. Likewise, by getting through the door, the film crew can explore a little beyond the confines their host lays out for themm. The result, General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait, ends up being a powerful exposé, laying bare the seductive powers of the man behind the image he portrays. The film shows Idi Amin as both surprisingly human and a horrible monster. The two aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, the monster needs the human side to be effective. His sense of humor--here shown in the cheeky letters Idi Amin sends to other world leaders, which make me think as much of the recent weird missives out of North Korea as I do of the curret American President’s ludicrous tweets--is his best weapon.

Which is really something to think about in our modern times, as slick talking heads on our TVs consistently sell us a bill of goods. At one point, even Idi Amin was a hero of the people, his goal to restore the economic power of Uganda so they would not be reliant on foreign powers. The results speak louder than the promises, though, and the images that Schroeder shows us of failing shops and shuttered businesses sharply contrast with the lifestyle the great savior has created for himself.

In this, even more than 40 years later, General Idi Amin Dada: A Self-Portrait is a lasting testament of the power of journalism and the responsibility of the media to call little men in big chairs on their own bullshit.

The new Blu-ray edition from Criterion is a considerable upgrade from their initial 2002 DVD. The picture quality is fantastic, preserving this historical document in a way that helps maintain its contemporary feel. Though supplements are spare, there are two new additions to this version: an interview with journalist Andrew Rice and a new piece with Barbet Schroeder. Coupled with the original 2001 interview with the director, the 30-minutes-plus of conversation with Schroeder explains the documentary process, reveals some of the push and pull between the author and his subject, and also gives us a little idea of what it was like behind the scenes before and after, when Dada saw the movie for himself. (Spoiler: He had concerns.)

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

THE COMPLETE MONTEREY POP FESTIVAL - #167

D.A. Pennebaker is responsible for two of my favorite music documentaries, Bob Dylan’s Don’t Look Back [review] and Depeche Mode 101. Both incorporate the backstage business, offstage shenanigans, and fan experience that makes the music come alive in arenas that extend beyond the recorded product, laying bare the entire operation, from farm to table.

In Criterion’s The Complete Monterey Pop Festival, the documentarian does the same for the original live rock event, packaging the premiere festival for audiences the world over as Monterey Pop; though, arguably to less effect, partially because he has less time to spend away from the music. Simply because there’s so much of it. Days of it. What we see here is just a curated selection of an entire weekend in 1967, cut down to individual performances from a selection of the performing bands, sometimes not even complete songs. These highlights include The Who, Mamas and Papas, Simon and Garfunkel, Otis Redding, Country Joe and the Fish, Jimi Hendrix, and more. Most of the numbers are shot and edited in a manner that mixes a distant vantage point showing a clear image of the stage with intimate close-ups, highlighting the faces and instruments. Pennebaker is trying to capture the movement, the “happening.” You are simultaneously in the audience and in the band.

The most powerful moments, however, don’t happen on the sage, but rather are the ones he finds amongst the spectators, when someone unaware they are being watched loses themselves in the music, like when the camera zooms in on the hands of the woman with chipped nail polish fingering Ravi Shankar’s tabulature on her fur coat. Tellingly, the filmmaker waits until Shankar’s song is about to climax before showing the musician himself for the first time. Likewise, we can glean much from the fact that many musicians have abandoned their posts to watch Shankar. Hendrix and the Mamas and the Papas’ Michelle Phillips are both seen in audience, alongside Mickey Dolenz, who was there as an anonymous witness, sans the other Monkees. Shankar is the most transcendent of all the acts on the bill, effortlessly achieving the tonal bliss that others, like Country Joe, struggle for. And the set receives a naturally rapturous reaction. It’s no wonder Pennebaker made it the finale.

Of all the highlighted sets, Otis Redding and the Who prove themselves to be unparalleled performers, and with his avant-garde rendition of the Stones’ “Paint it Black,” perfectly melding the aural presentation with a psychedelic backdrop, Eric Burdon comes off as ahead of his time. Many of the bands here don’t really suit my taste, including Jimi Hendrix, but it’s also obvious why he was one of two acts Pennebaker chose to peel off from the main and turn their full sets into their own movies. The Complete Monterey Pop Festival three-disc box comes with both Jimi Plays Monterey and Shake! Otis at Monterey. Otis’ show, with Booker T and the MGs providing back-up, is a wonder to behold, and if you’ve never heard any of his live albums, this short documentary will likely send you out hunting for them.

True fans will also dig the bonus Blu-ray with more than two hours of outtakes featuring more songs from the main acts and some bands that didn’t make the cut (Moby Grape, the Association, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, to name a few). All features are presented in a newly upgraded, high-definition format that brings clarity and depth to both picture and sound, surpassing even the incredible job Criterion did on their previous edition (released in ancient times: 2002!).

Of the many bonuses on the disc, the most unique and interesting is Chiefs, a short documentary about a gathering of police and religious leaders at what is essentially a weapons convention that played alongside Monterey Pop during its theatrical release. Directed by Richard Leacock, Chiefs is frightening in its enduring relevance. Shot more than half-a-century ago, behind closed doors at their own event, we witness authoritarians blaming dissenters and academic for social unrest, peddling in sincerely believed misinformation that they hope will inspire others while continuing to stoke their own convictions. They are firm and resolute in their convictions, even if they don’t always aim them properly. Sort of like the way the weapons manufacturers hide their commerce behind more lofty claims of aiding law enforcement. Their attitude and tactics of distraction haven’t changed much over their decades, even if their physical weapons--and the heat of the incendiary propaganda--have only gotten worse.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

LE SAMOURAI - #306

It’s not the silence that gets me about LeSamouraï, it’s the stillness. Sure, it takes ten minutes before anyone says a word in Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1967 crime masterpiece, but that’s not really what makes Le Samouraï so riveting, so impossible to look away from. That would be the economy of movement, and the willingness of the camera, along with everyone in its lens, to remain perfectly still. Particularly Alain Delon, playing Jef Costello, the hitman that leads this thing. He spends much of the movie with his hands in his pockets, staring straight ahead. It’s a performance absent of gesture. He only moves when he acts.

As with his heist film Le cercle rouge [review], Melville builds this noir knock-off around a Japanese proverb, this time borrowed from the Bushido, the code of the samurai warrior (or, at least purported to be, since apparently Melville made it up). “There is no solitude greater than that of the samurai unless it be that of a tiger in the jungle...perhaps....” Jef is a man without personal relationships, only connections. He lives alone with a chirping bullfinch that acts as his canary in the coal mine, its behavior tipping him off to any intruders. His clients can be anonymous, and the man he kills at the start of Le Samouraï, the nightclub owner, is a stranger to him. He’s a lone wolf (no cub).

Each step toward the hit is part of a methodology: getting an untraceable car, establishing an alibi, picking a route that will make it less likely for him to be seen. Step by step, Jef goes about his business. Only the unpredictability of others is his real enemy. This particular job starts to go haywire when a piano player in the club, Valérie (Cathy Rosier), is in the hallway when Jef exits the boss’ office. Her vague description of the killer causes police to round up any usual suspect that matches the brief. Except, when Valérie sees Jef in the line-up, she changes the details of her story to protect him. He doesn’t know why, and neither does the detective (François Périer, Orpheus [review]) pursuing the case. He’s sure Jef is his man, and he starts hunting the jungle cat with the a precision to match Jef’s own (provided, again, others don’t screw it up for him).

Breaking it down, Le Samouraï is a portrait of a cold-blooded killer having his blood warmed. Though Jef tracks Valérie down ostensibly to find out who his clients are after a double-cross, presuming they paid the musician to lie on his behalf, their encounter has a different effect on him. Jef sees the kindness in the woman, and he begins to understand that there is benefit to not always being alone, people can care about you and help you. At least, for me, this would explain his actions in the film’s final scene. He has fallen in love with her, such as he understands it. So he takes care of her in the only manner he understands: kill or don’t kill. (She wears animal print in early scenes: is she another predator or prey?)

It’s funny, because the first time I’d ever heard of Le Samouraï was when I was editing the comic book series Red Rocket 7. Michael Allred’s sci-fi comic was a tour of rock history through the eyes of an alien clone. Allred is an expert retro stylist, the sort of guy who would watch Melville’s immaculately designed film and see things he could use in his own work. In this case, the author opens an issue of Red Rocket 7 with Red’s girlfriend telling him “I love you” while in a movie theater. The movie they are watching in this moment of potential emotional panic? Le Samouraï. On the screen behind him, Jef Costello has a gun pointed at his head, held by the man who betrayed him. It’s a smart parallel. This kind of emotion is just as deadly for Jef as it feels for Red (though romance has more purchase in Allred’s world).

Le Samouraï is a cool film. Not just hip, but I mean in temperature, in look. There are no vibrant colors in the movie. The skies are gray, Jef’s apartment is green and brown, the nightclub is silver and blue--perhaps the most colorful image is Valérie’s white gold dress. It’s sparkly in much the same way the nightclub décor sparkles. It’s sleek and fancy and modern, but not necessarily space age. The club itself presents a different world, one that is clean and shiny. Everywhere else Jef goes is grimy and dank, with maybe the exception of the apartment of Jane (Nathalie Delon), his alibi. Its feminine details are soft and lean toward lighter hues, in contrast to the masculine, utilitarian, beige and gun-metal grey police station--hence, the police destroying the peacefulness of the flat when they invade. Every set is designed to let you know whom you are dealing with the moment you step through the doors. Those coming to this edition of Le Samouraï for the high-definition upgrade will be pleased to see how much the image has improved. (NOTE: The screengrabs here are taken from the 2005 DVD release.)

One last thing before I cease my ramble--AND THOSE WHO FEAR SPOILERS PLEASE LOOK AWAY NOW AND COME BACK LATER--but let’s talk that last scene.

The death of Jef Costello is its own odd style choice. In one sense, it recalls the end of Breathless [review], when Belmondo falls backwards in the street after being shot. Of course, Melville appeared in Breathless, and Jean-Luc Godard looked up to the older director, so is it possible that the end of Le Samouraï is some kind of metatextual answer to the conclusion of the revolutionary nouvelle vague classic? Delon does not go down with the same improvised realism of Belmondo. Rather, in much the same way that Michel’s death in that earlier film reflects the freeform aesthetic of Godard’s mis-en-scene, Jef’s death has a more rigid, theatrical styling, befitting both the aesthetic of Le Samouraï but also of a more classical filmmaking technique. With the small trickle of blood on his mouth, clutching his chest with gloved hands, Delon almost looks like Bela Lugosi sinking back into Dracula’s coffin. Is it the death of a warrior, or the finale of a horror movie?

Then again, perhaps it’s nothing. But if Jean-Pierre Melville is as precise as the character he gave life to, we know it has to mean something. Even if it’s just a sacrificial pose or that Jef is as unmoved by death as he is all else.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

GOOD MORNING - #84

Please note: the images here are taken from the 2000 standard definition DVD and not the newly released 2017 Blu-ray under review.

Yasujiro Ozu’s light 1959 comedy GoodMorning was one of my first Criterion blind buys. Spotted in a now-closed used record store in Portland, I snatched it up on sight, knowing if I didn’t, it would be gone before I could ever go back to grab it. Such was the rarity of seeing Criterion discs in second-hand bins back in the day--all too unusual, you had to act.

Luckily I had rolled the dice on a pretty safe bet. Good Morning is brimming with joy, even as it maintains Ozu’s usual unassuming attitude. Set in a Tokyo suburb, this genial film tells the stories of several neighboring families. Linked mostly by their young sons, these individual units are subject to gossip, misunderstanding, and judgment--negative foibles hidden just below a very positive surface. You know, the way clans and communities do. When you boil it down, Good Morning is about family, just like most of Ozu’s oeuvre. In this case, not just family by blood, but the community you build.

Oh, and it has fart jokes. To be more exact, one running fart joke that carries through the whole movie. And I don’t care what you think, I love fart jokes. And poop jokes. Especially when a fart joke becomes a poop joke. Which it does here, to hilarious effect.

Though the four boys connect all the houses--including the misunderstood hipster couple with the television and the single English tutor who provide the kids refuge--the central duo of older brother Minoru (Koji Shidara) and younger brother Isamu (Masahiko Shimazu, Late Autumn [review]) end up driving most of the movie. They get the most screen time with their private protest against their supposedly stingy mother (Kuniko Miyake, star of many Ozu films, including Early Summer and Tokyo Story [review]) and her refusal to buy them a TV of their own. Mother Hiyashi is more frugal than stingy, it’s up to her to keep the house on budget, but this is also not the only time in Good Morning that she is accused of financial malfeasance. Another driving storyline is the issue of the missing dues from the local women’s organization. The ladies have varying theories of who made off with the cash, and even though it gets an amicable resolution, the way the situation is concluded splinters off into its own conspiracy theories and gossipy tributaries. There’s not much to do throughout the day, it seems, but get in each other’s business. It’s all innocent and meaningless until it isn’t. Such little things, they make a big difference.

In addition to these kinds of family dynamics, Ozu regularly explored the differences between generations in his movies, and Good Morning is no exception. Here, the aforementioned television is the most prominent example of how times are changing, and the director is certainly seizing upon the cultural shifts occurring at the end of the decade. The kids learning English, the progressive neighbors with posters for French films on their walls (and not just any French film, but Louis Malle’s The Lovers [review]), the nervous patriarchs set adrift in a changing economic landscape--these are all signs of the time. Prescient ones, too. Dad is worried about maintaining employment long enough to have a solid retirement, kids are worried about watching sumo wrestling in the living room. A more judgmental director (like, say, Douglas Sirk in All That HeavenAllows) would be concerned for how this younger generation was going to rot its brain--indeed, one of the older men in Good Morning expresses such a fear--but Ozu seems to take no stance. He is amused by the rebellious youngsters staging their own revolution, but also empathetic to the parents who need to keep things together. If Ozu is siding with anyone, it’s probably the middle generation, like the tutor or the boys’ aunt, both of whom bridge the divide. Is it any surprise, then, that they end up having a little romance?

What may be more interesting here, though, is how Ozu is adopting modern techniques to tell this modern story, particularly since Good Morning is an update of his 1932 silent film I Was Born, But...--which was previously available in the Eclipse set Silent Ozu: Three Family Comedies [review], but is also included in full as an extra on this Good Morning upgrade. Shot in vibrant Technicolor by Yushun Atsuta, Good Morning has a look not dissimilar to television’s nascent genre, the sitcom, a comparison further backed by the episodic nature of Good Morning’s narrative and the jazzy lounge score that keeps the action moving. (Toshiro Mayuzumi was a prolific composer for Japanese movies, working also with Naruse, Imamura, and Kurahara.) Not to mention how all the complicated imbroglios have really simple explanations, the discoveries of which only lead to more complications. It’s almost a shame there wasn’t a spin-off so we could have watched all the kids grow up on a weekly basis.

Fans of Good Morning should be pleased with this new 4K restoration. The colors are gorgeous, and the image quality pristine. Given the gap between this release and the original DVD, Criterion had a lot of new technology to put to use in making Good Morning look good, and the results are stupendous. In addition to  I Was Born, But..., fans of silent film will also appreciate the inclusion of the short A Straightforward Boy, a 1929 effort from Yasujiro Ozu, presented here incomplete, in its only existing form. One of the first efforts of the director to create comedy using children, it’s an amusing trifle about kidnappers being stymied by a child who never quite realizes he’s being kidnapped, and proving too much to handle in the process.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

BLU-REDO: BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB - #866

What a difference a few years make. Or maybe it was just my mood. Most likely, though, it was expectations. I had heard a lot about Buena Vista Social Club, knew its reputation and its awards pedigree, so I am sure I expected to be wowed. When what I saw turned out to be much more subdued than the musical party I was expecting, I was maybe too quick to shrug it off. Thus, my original review, which was respectful but tepid.

Now seven years on, the Criterion Blu-ray in hand, and Wim Wenders’ 1999 documentary about the Cuban music scene is something I found to be absolutely enchanting. I was moved by the music, enthralled by the stories--it’s the same movie, but this time, I get it.

What Wenders had uncovered is not just incredible music, but tje incredible cast of characters that made it. Ibrahim Ferrer, Compay Segundo, Pío Leyva, Rubén   Gonz

ia; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">ález, and the rest were of their time, a product of history, creating a beautiful reflection of the social change that swept across their homeland, but also a victim of the same movement. One gets the sense, particularly as you listen to their wistful anecdotes about the time when their club was all the rage, that Castro and his communism left them behind. They could have been something more, perhaps even international stars, but the doors to the outside world closed, and so eventually did the doors of the Buena Vista Social Club.

I particularly felt this when Ferrer would talk. He had the strange duality of an artist who hasn’t gotten his due--humbled by life, and yet confident in his talents. There is a subtle arrogance in knowing he deserved better.

And this is what makes the concert footage such a celebration. Filmed on trips to Germany and New York, the performances by these old timers have the energy of emotions being unleashed. At last, they are on a stage large enough for the songs; at last, they can sing them as intended.

Criterion’s new release does the film justice with a new transfer and a bevy of extras, including a vintage director’s commentary with Wenders. The image quality is not always up to current standards, but one gets the sense that the transfer is making the best of the source material. Some of the interview footage has the soft edge of early digital. It probably never looked that crisp. Which is fine, since the warm 5.1 surround mix is so good. Buena Vista Social Club is more about the sound than it is the image, and you’ll be pleased with this upgrade when you turn down the lights, turn up the volume, and let the Club work their magic.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

BLU-REDO: THE EXTERMINATING ANGEL - #459

A few years on since Criterion’s 2012 release of The Exterminating Angel (and my lengthy review), this new Blu-ray upgrade of Luis Buñuel’s 1962 social satire couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time. As political climates change and divides deepen across the world, this surreal masterpiece turns the tables on the social classes. Though wealth and standing were not part of Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson’s infamous horror movie rules in Scream, a deeper examination of the genre, particularly the sort of isolating event they were sending up in their movie, I am sure would reveal that most often, things go bad for the poor, not the rich. Or, when they do, someone from the underclass is there to save the day. The outsider that tagged along with her moneyed classmates for the weekend being the only one to emerge from a slasher plot alive.

Not that The Exterminating Angel is at all like a slasher film, but it is very much a horror film. Dark forces are in the air right from the get-go, when the servants of a Mexican dignitary start exiting his home just before a big dinner party. There is a suggestion that they are not colluding, that they are not aware of what compels them to go. Did they enact a curse on their snobby boss and his guests, or are they simply falling under the same spell? While this strange happening forces them to leave, it requires the others to stay.

What exactly happened is never explained, nor does it need to be. The closest we get to maybe being able to surmise the motivation of whatever force is holding sway is The Exterminating Angel’s closing scenes. We’ve switched from the wealthy to the pious. Buñuel is targeting social institutions and ideologies, isolating them so as to expose and ridicule. His main scenario, borrowing a little from Sartre’s No Exit, is that following their meal, the partygoers discover they cannot leave. There is no visible obstacle keeping them in the room, yet they can’t find the ability to simply walk out. Food disappears, as do other pleasures; the group splinters, factions form. Stripped of the trappings of status, these people are left to be themselves--and who they are is not necessarily very likable.

In a society where the gap between the rich and the poor, as well as many moral and political divides, is becoming more pronounced than ever, there is much we can glean from The Exterminating Angel. The film makes the division real, blocking the rich from the rest of the world, but in doing so, takes everything away, turning them into the people they might otherwise judge, forcing them to go without. In added prescience, Buñuel’s turning the whole thing into a media spectacle is not unlike reality television being a platform for celebrity, wealth, and now leadership. Though, the gawkers outside the mansion seem positively quaint in the age of 24-7 surveillance, paparazzi, and, of course, oversharing.

The critique is sharp, but Buñuel’s approach is often playful. He watches his characters with the mirth of a prankster. Which, of course, he is. It’s the director who locked these people in this mansion, and only he can let them out once he’s seen all he wants to see. They can be craven and petty, but their desperation is also horribly human. As with the best horror, the awful things that happen prove to remind us we are alive, and that we are all in this together. The rich are no better than anyone else, no more capable--but when they finally do get out, it’s because they push together.

The high-definition transfer on this disc is very nice, bringing The Exterminating Angel into its Blu period. I don’t believe this is any different than the transfer used for the previous DVD edition, but the image is crisp and the uncompressed soundtrack sounds fantastic. All the extras from the original disc, including a 2008 documentary tribute to Luis Buñuel, are carried over to this re-release.

The images used in this review are from the standard-definition DVD and not the Blu-ray under examination. 

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

SHORT CUTS - #265

Doreen: “Our whole lives could have changed.”

Earl: “I wish something would come and change our lives.”

I spent most of my youth in and around Los Angeles, far enough from where the cool things were happening to understand for real what a sprawling, expansive city it is. Indeed, Los Angeles is even more than the city proper, it sucks in most of the other smaller townships around it. I got to know it a little better once I learned to drive, and am rediscovering much of it now that I’ve returned here after 20 years in exile in the Pacific Northwest. What I always tell people from out of town who can’t quite crack the nature of Los Angeles is you have to find your pockets. One spot may have nothing to offer you, but drive half a mile in any direction, and you might find a place to call your own. Or that you at least want to visit regularly. Los Angeles is incongruous and divisive, but it’s also undeniably alive.

It’s pockets that Robert Altman focuses on in his 1993 Raymond Carver tableau Short Cuts. Pockets of Los Angelenos, spanning class and profession, that bump up against each other, cross over, and then keep going, sometimes not even realizing a connection was made. Short Cuts both in the literary nature of the stories told, and in some ways, how these characters all chase after their goals. Sometimes quick actions lead to terrible consequences.

Ambition and desire tie the different groups together. And survival. The first two are necessary in Los Angeles if you want the third, but they can also screw up whatever game plan you think you have. So it is that Chris Penn’s pool cleaner Jerry resents his wife Lois (Jennifer Jason Leigh) for being a phone sex operator to make ends meet, jealous of the sexual attention she gives to other men, and turning his pent-up needs into rage. Or how Tim Robbins--playing a quintessential Los Angeles figure, the jerk cop--let’s his power trips lead him to make bad decisions. Note how when the shit really goes down, he ignores his family’s peril to make sure the neighborhood acknowledges his authority. His impotence is hilarious, striking a statuesque figure and shouting into the sky.

Penn and Robbins aren’t the only male characters to be driven by their libido, nor is Penn the only one who resents his wife for bringing in the dough. In the relationship between the two alcoholic enablers, Lily Tomlin’s waitress Doreen is the reliable breadwinner, whereas Tom Waits’ Earl is hotheaded and impulsive, going off the handle when the diner customers pay her too much attention. And man’s man Stuart (Fred Ward) is reminded more than once that he is unemployed. That it’s by his wife, Claire (Anne Archer), who dresses up as a literal clown to bring in the coin, probably stings a little. Or maybe not. It seems like Stuart enjoys working on his car and going on fishing trips with his buddies (Buck Henry and Huey Lewis and also Huey Lewis’ penis) and probably would equally resent having to punch a clock.

When the men do work, it adds to their sense of entitlement as husbands. Matthew Modine plays a doctor, Ralph, who is dismissive of his wife’s painting and has also held a petty resentment for years--the revelation of which gave Julianne Moore her star-making performance, infamous for the state of undress in which she finds herself during it. It’s less about openness in that moment than rage. It’s a roced exposure, not a vulnerable outpouring. Cross-reference this with how Tim Robbins and Peter Gallagher both interrogate the woman between them (Frances McDormand), and there’s a pattern here: men who don’t know how much they really don’t want to know. It’s no wonder that most of the wives can’t help but laugh at the antics of their spouse.

Gallagher and Robbins never meet--though they are both terrible fathers and ridiculous images of masculinity; Gallagher plays a pilot named Stormy Weathers who combs his hair like Elvis--but they have Frances McDormand between them. She is Gallagher’s (soon to be?) ex-wife and Robbins’ mistress. Robbins also pulls over Anne Archer in her clown car to flirt with her, and his wife (Madeleine Stowe) models for Julianne Moore. At one point, Archer, Gallagher, and Andie MacDowell--playing the mother of a child hit by Lily Tomlin in her car--all end up in the same bakery, engaging in no more than a polite hello. While plenty of the groups cross-pollinate and have more meaningful interactions, this is the true nature of connection in Short Cuts: the coincidence of locale. Because though Los Angeles is very big, its main internal contradiction is that it’s also very small. That fellow behind you in line at the coffee shop? Don’t be surprised if you see him again somewhere else. Maybe even on your TV!

Altman’s ensemble dramas would inspire many other filmmakers, but none of them would have the facility for juggling their many stories that he had. Paul Thomas Anderson’s Magnolia is practically worked together from an outline of Short Cuts, but I’d contend stumbles under its own weight. Anderson labors each story, where Altman sees the jazz in his construction, favoring brief edits (a.k.a. short cuts) that keep the players working in tandem, only occasionally breaking the rhythm for solos when it counts. Some moves are so fast, you could even miss them, yet the great storyteller never loses his audience. I think the only ones who ever really got close to matching his speed are the Wachowskis in Cloud Atlas, but even there, it comes off as more of a device, despite how ingrained the idea is within the narrative itself.

Perhaps the difference is how Altman holds it all together by framing Short Cuts with two very similar situations. At the start of the film, we meet our casts as they rush indoors to avoid the pesticide being sprayed from helicopters--the official bird of Los Angeles--to kill the medflies. We could likely consider it an act of hubris, that man thinks it can stop the flow of nature, and does so even at the risk of poisoning himself. (And hey, where hubris is involved, send your cockiest individual; Stormy is one of the spraying pilots.) Nature gets its own back in the end, as an earthquake rocks each and every character at exactly the same time, uniting them in a potential natural disaster--not altogether different than the rain of frogs at the end of Magnolia or the tornado in Altman’s own Dr. T and the Women [review] but arguably more successful for its reality.

In the allegorical sense, that earthquake is brought on by the terrible and selfish actions of the characters in the film, most notably one eruption of primal violence  that seemingly triggers it. It’s as if the planet wants to shake us off for being annoying pests. When the shaking is done, however, each individual has revealed him or herself. The feuding couples who stayed up all night partying keep the party going, forgetting their troubles, and Doreen and Earl see that no matter how rocky things get, they are meant for one another. The most human of moments comes just before, however, and is more poignant for having happened spontaneously. The angry baker (Lyle Lovett) sees the error of his ways and makes up with Andie MacDowell, finding empathy and acknowledging how he’s wronged her. It makes the most sense then, that when the quake does hit, they help each other get to cover.

I suppose that’s Altman’s real message to Los Angeles. Short Cuts tells us that even if we live in one of the most vital and vibrant cities in the world, we still need each other to get along, and how we do that defines who we are as individuals and as a citizenry. It’ll break you otherwise. Or the blind eye you turn may break someone else.

The screengrabs in this review are from the standard definition release and not the Blu-ray.

This is my second review of Short Cuts; you can find the first here.

This disc provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.

IKIRU (Blu-ray) - #221

Akira Kurosawa was still a relatively young man in 1952 when he made his elegy for old age, Ikiru. Yet, somehow the director still managed to make a deeply felt and wisely observed drama about obsolescence and dying.

Ikiru, which translates as “To Live,” stars Takashi Shimura, the dramatic heavy of Seven Samurai [review], as Kanji Watanabe, a reliable career man at City Hall. Watanabe is known for his predictability: he hasn’t missed a day of work in three decades, and each of those days, he ate plain udon noodles for lunch. So it is that the entire office is rocked when Watanabe fails to show up one morning--a morning that stretches into five days. What could have happened to the man?

Well, we know, even if everyone in the film does not. Watanabe has been diagnosed with stomach cancer and only has six months to a year left. Unsure of what to make of this news, Watanabe decides to keep it to himself. He doesn’t tell his staff, nor does he tell his son and daughter-in-law. Instead, Watanabe enters a kind of fugue. He wanders the city looking for the life he previously rejected in order to raise his offspring. His wife died when their son was very young, and as we see in a series of flashbacks, Watanabe put everything into making sure the boy had a good life. How devastating it must be then, that now that it counts, the old man can’t trust his son with the most important news he’s ever had.

Watanabe spends one night on a bender with a libertine writer (Yunosuke Ito (The Burmese Harp, I Will Buy You [review]) and then he also connects with a young woman from his office (Miki Odagiri) who is bored and herself looking for a change. He confides in these people what he can’t tell anyone else, and at first this provides some succor. There’s only so much frivolity a man of purpose can endure, however, before he must find that purpose again. For Watanabe, it’s undertaking a project no one else wants and proving that City Hall can be more than just paper pushers. One last stand to do something that matters.

Whether or not this worked is the subject of Ikiru’s final act, when Watanabe’s co-workers debate what caused such a change in the man they had only known to be unwavering and meek. It’s an interesting shift, one that allows Kurosawa to avoid portraying Watanabe’s inevitable end, even if the outcome is pessimistic. If you can’t fight City Hall, you probably can’t change it, either.

Ikiru goes to plenty of emotional depths and ponders the darkness with an unflinching courage; yet, it is never dull, much less morose. You’d think watching an old man waiting to die would feel a little bit like death itself, but Takashi Shimura has a sympathetic face and an undeniable screen presence that makes it impossible not to watch and wait to see how it turns out. Kurosawa is not the only one taking a few metaphorical steps forward in tie, Shimura is playing it older, too. Watanabe is slow and hunched and speaks at a level only slightly above a whisper; it’s almost like you have to lean in yourself to hear what he is saying and share in what is happening. And plenty happens--though it’s mostly disappointing for Watanabe. He realizes how little his life has affected, and how much he has been taken for granted. Shimura’s stooped posture makes it look like he is hunting for something, and perhaps he is. Perhaps he’s looking for that lost spark to reignite Watanabe’s passion in his final days.

As low-key as this all may sound, the results are riveting. At times, Kurosawa stages the tale with as sure a footing as most see in Watanabe. As the old man loses that footing, at times we tumble into a kaleidoscope of memory. Past decisions are seen to have a direct effect on the present, and it’s heartbreaking to see all of that effort come out wrong.

Or does it? Surely our estimation of Watanabe is different than his estimation of himself. Because even if you can’t change the system, one individual really can make a difference. Watanabe’s newfound stubbornness, which he enacts in an almost zen-like fashion, turning the subtle force of his meekness into undeniable insistence, forces his co-workers out of their complacency, even if it is just to make the old man go away. Folks who never met Watanabe before also see him as an immovable object. When gangsters who would rather see the park land turned into a red light district come to strong-arm the city officials, they find they are no match for Watanabe. They look in his eyes and see he will not be moved. On the flipside, Watanabe makes positive change where it counts: in the lives of the people living in the neighborhood that gets transformed.

Those among you looking to upgrade your previous edition of Ikiru will be happy to know that the 4K digital transfer on the new Blu-ray is well worth swapping for. The image is not without its flaws, there are occasional irreparable scratches on the short, but the overall clarity is quite wonderful. The old extras are also carried over, including the Ikiru-specific installment of the excellent Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to Create documentary series that spans many of the Criterion Kurosawa releases.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.