"No Country For Old Men"

Joel & Ethan Coen’s new entry in their library of films re-defining Americana is as bleak as the southwest Texas land it is set in. The arid vistas are reminiscent of the icy land of "Fargo." The deadened eyes and sardonic dialogue of its denizens are more despairing even than the protagonists in "Miller’s Crossing" or "Blood Simple."

"No Country For Old Men" digs deep into this parched soil and tries for deeper meaning, a result which is both good and bad for the audience. The Coens have always shown a fascination with Hollywood genres as vehicles for reworking American myth making.

They’ve explored, needled and skewered classic filmmakers like Capra ("The Hudsucker Proxy"), Sturges ("Intolerable Cruelty" and "O’ Brother, Where Art Thou") Huston / Hawks ("Miller’s Crossing" and "The Big Lebowski") and Wilder ("The Man Who Wasn’t There").

Now it seems they felt the need to take on the Western. "No Country" explodes any of the myths of the West left to us after such anti-Western Westerns as "The Unforgiven," in episodes so violent that even when only the aftermath is shown, we cringe.

In the classic Western, a hero faced down the hired gunslinger, no matter how cruel, evil, or tyrannical he seemed to be. "Shane" took down "Jack Wilson" (Jack Palance), Will Kane (Gary Cooper) killed Frank Miller (Ian McDonald) at "High Noon."

The Coens take for granted that the implacable hitman, Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem), the modern gunslinger, wins every showdown. The Coens don’t even bother to show us the final bloodbath when we expect that the apparent "hero," Llewellyn Moss (Josh Brolin), will face down the evil.

In fact, as in the first scene of destruction, we are shown only the aftermath, and its depiction is so quick and spare that we can’t piece it together, as if we are teased — that our fascination with violence will not be sated this time. The truth is greater than those details and the truth lies not in who killed who and why.

The traditional Western hero of this yarn is Sheriff Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), whose weathered face and voice express his sadness of inevitable loss of all that he thought noble about the American West. He knows that all of his wisdom and calm courage means nothing in an age when chance, greed, and cruel savagery take every trick.

There is no place for heroes in this world. Winners are those who survive, not necessarily by being the cleverest, or fastest on the draw, but by predatory instinct, callousness, and sheer luck.

The post modern paradigm in control here is the coin toss. Like the noir heroes of an earlier film epoch, the hitman has a "code" that guides his actions. Just as Sam Spade’s code, which forced the denial of sentimentality to do his job, Anton Chigurh must pursue his victims by his own inexorable compass reading, deviating only to amuse himself occasionally by permitting chance to decide the fate of a tangential annoyance. Like a predatory cat, he can release a morsel or remorselessly squash it.

Against such power, the old hero knows he is "overmatched" as Sheriff Bell admits.

The Coens cannot escape their awareness of film history in setting scenes and action, quoting diverse sources as "Touch Of Evil," "North By Northwest" and even "The Terminator."

There is a conscious borrow from "High Noon" when Sheriff Bell bemoans his disillusionment with Ellis (Barry Corbin), a wheelchair bound former deputy, as Will Kane did with Martin (Lon Chaney, Jr.), the former sheriff.

It is the gift of the Coens (somewhat akin to Tarentino) to entertain us with these images and stories despite our revulsion, forcing us to laugh at the dark comedy about psychopaths and greedy, grimy, foolish people, maybe sensing that our lives could be touched at any time in similar insane ways if the coin flips the wrong way.

100 Great American Movies - Revised

The AFI has produced another in the never ending chain of BEST 100 lists, this one no more definitive of BEST than any other. In 1998, the AFI produced its first such list, labeled “Best American Films of the 20th Century”. It did what was intended: generated conversation about movies and provided an excuse for a T.V. special. The new one will do no less and no more.

Ten years ago, I spent some time forming my opinions about inclusions and exclusions, rankings and implications. Now I recall those thoughts and add some new ones about the updated list.

My first thought is that then, as now, I have to admit that I agree with most inclusions, though some are not as “great” as others and I still quarrel with many rankings based on my own taste.

The latest list redressed some of my grievances, but not others. For example, I noted then that the list was too impressed with “importance,” as defined by Oscar success and grosses, political correctness, and apparent “newness” of style or technical breakthroughs, which I thought to be of historical rather than long-lasting significance.

On those grounds, the current list eliminated all of the following films (with their 1998 rankings):

39 Dr. Zhivago;
44 Birth Of A Nation [replaced in the new list by Griffith’s less inflammatory 49 Intolerance];
52 From Here To Eternity;
53 Amadeus;
54 All Quiet On The Western Front;
57 The Third Man [the one egregious exclusion];
58 Fantasia [replaced by Toy Story];
59 Rebel Without A Cause;
63 Stagecoach;
64 Close Encounters Of The Third Kind;
67 The Manchurian Candidate;
68 An American In Paris;
73 Wuthering Heights;
75 Dances With Wolves;
82 Giant [along with Rebel, eliminates James Dean from the list];
84 Fargo [eliminates any from the Coens];
86 Mutiny On The Bounty;
87 Frankenstein;
89 Patton;
90 The Jazz Singer;
91 My Fair Lady;
92 A Place In The Sun [the second George Stevens film removed];
99 Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.

Some such movies were severely downgraded (1998/current):
(72/100) Ben-Hur;
(70/93) The French Connection;
(50/73): Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid;
(17/65) The African Queen;
(40/55) North By Northwest;
(13/36) Bridge Over The River Kwai;
(46/70) A Clockwork Orange.

Yet, overrated movies remain:
Gone With The Wind dropped only slightly, from 4 to 6.
Inexplicably, The Sound Of Music rose from 55 to 40 [while Bonnie And Clyde dropped from 27 to 42].

Films that are new to the list:
17 The Graduate;
18 The General [redressing the previous omission of Buster Keaton];
50 Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring [the most recently released movie on the list, 2001];
59 Nashville;
61 Sullivan’s Travels [reflecting the overdue recognition of Preston Sturges];
63 Cabaret [adding Bob Fosse’s most popular, if not best film work (All That Jazz)];
67 Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? [a second by Mike Nichols, who previously was shut out];
71 Saving Private Ryan [Spielberg trades Close Encounters];
72 The Shawshank Redemption;
75 In The Heat Of The Night;
77 All The President’s Men;
81 Spartacus [Kirk Douglas’s only entry];
82 Sunrise [Murnau’s 1927 silent masterpiece];
83 Titanic;
85 A Night At The Opera [adding a second Marx Brothers classic to the list, with Duck Soup (85/60);
87 12 Angry Men;
89 The Sixth Sense;
90 Swing Time [adding an Astaire Rogers musical for the first time and a Stevens movie replacing two that are dropped];
91 Sophie’s Choice;
95 The Last Picture Show;
96 Do The Right Thing;
97 Blade Runner;
99 Toy Story.

Other films soared in esteem in the past 10 years.
Raging Bull rose from 24 to 4;
Vertigo from 61 to 9;
City Lights from 76 to 11;
The Searchers from 96 to 12.

In 1998, I felt that some films were too recent to be fairly evaluated because my standard for “great” requires aging, multiple viewing during your life. Some on the list seemed dated or tedious on later viewing, not as “important” or as much a breakthrough as they appeared when released, or just not as pleasurable when seen again. Because one of my personal standards for “greatness” is whether I want to see it again, and if so, how often, many would not be popped into my VCR / DVD.

Those I questioned then but accept now include
Pulp Fiction (1994), then ranked 95, now 94, which I now consider to be too low;
Fargo was then 84, now out of the top 100;
Goodfellas was 94, now 92, also underrated.
The Unforgiven was 98, now 68 - reflecting Clint Eastwood’s revisionist view of the Western preferred over John Ford’s [(63) Stagecoach drops out of the 100].

I still think these are overrated:
Platoon (83/86);
Doctor Zhivago (39/off);
Giant (82/off);
One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest (20/33);
Tootsie (62/69),
Dances With Wolves (75/off).

Maybe The Lord Of The Rings and Titanic will stand the test of time but certainly, if they deserve to make the list, how can Shakespeare In Love (1998) be neglected?

Ten years ago, some critics complained that the list was weighted toward recent films. I noted then that 21 of the top 40 were released before 1960. The new list increases it to 23.

But the “Golden Year” of 1939 has been tarnished.
GWTW and Wizard Of Oz (6/10) downrated; Stagecoach and Wuthering Heights omitted along with classics Goodbye, Mr. Chips and Gunga Din, which didn’t make the list in ‘98. Only Mr. Smith Goes To Washington improved position (29/26).

Another thing I noticed 10 years ago was the omission of films by some great stars — Laurel & Hardy, Shirley Temple, W.C. Fields, Garbo, Carole Lombard, Von Stroheim, King Vidor, Wellman, Lubitch. But I must admit that great moments, scenes or styles are what we remember and prize from those artists, rather than “great films”. It is difficult to name a “great film” associated with Laurel and Hardy, for instance, though they were certainly “great” comics. Adding Keaton’s The General, and Astaire/Rogers Swing Time are minor corrections.

A comparison of the genres represented on the old and new lists, are instructive [films which overlap genres are counted again]:

Musicals (10/8): removed: Amadeus, Fantasia, American In Paris, The Jazz Singer, My Fair Lady. Added: Nashville, Cabaret, Swing Time. Still didn’t make it: Gigi, The Band Wagon, Carousel, Top Hat/Shall We Dance, All That Jazz.

Westerns (8/6): Out - Stagecoach, Dances With Wolves. Left out again: Red River; My Darling Clementine; The Ox-Bow Incident, The Magnificent Seven.

War films (20/18). [Defined by me as including those in which a war is a major element in the drama, even if not labeled a war movie — thus I include a film like Casablanca.]

These films are appropriately numerous considering that wars or the threat of them were the most dramatic events of the 20th century. The list includes those which will provide a fitting chronicle — albeit somewhat skewed, sharply dramatized and often propagandized history — for the viewers of the next century of our nation’s wars.

Out = Birth Of A Nation, From Here To Eternity, All Quiet On The Western Front, Patton. Added = Saving Private Ryan, Spartacus. Ignored by both lists: Paths of Glory; A Walk in the Sun; 12 O’Clock High; Battleground; The Story of GI Joe; Porkchop Hill; The Big Parade; Red Badge of Courage and Fail-Safe.

Comedies (17/19) [including its subcategory — romantic comedies.] Many of my favorites left out are: The Bank Dick (Fields); Born Yesterday ; Animal House; The Pink Panther/Shot in the Dark; His Girl Friday; The Awful Truth; 1,2,3; Mr. Roberts, Young Frankenstein / The 12 Chairs / The Producers / Blazing Saddles (as a Mel Brooks entry); The Court Jester.

Sci-fi/ Occult (5/5). Frankenstein (87), Close Encounters (64) were offed, The Sixth Sense (89) and Blade Runner (96)were added A genre that doesn’t lend itself to great films. Other classics left out: The Thing (Hawks version); The Day The Earth Stood Still; Invasion of the Body Snatchers [Siegel version].

Epics (12/10) Somewhat facetiously, this is a genre including any film with “a cast of thousands.” Saving Private Ryan, Titanic, Intolerance, The Lord Of The Rings replaced Dr. Z, Birth Of A Nation, From Here To Eternity, All Quiet, Mutiny, Patton.

Crime: mysteries / thriller / spy / gangster (20/22). Perhaps it is the genre most reflective of American society with our never waning attraction to violence.

This is the most broadly represented genre in terms of spanning eras and rankings, appropriately so as it is the most durable and popular of genres among ‘serious’ directors; the specialties of the best of film makers such as Wilder, Huston, Hitchcock, Coppola, Scorsese.

The Third Man, The Manchurian Candidate, Fargo, A Place In The Sun join previous neglected classics out of the top 100: Scarface [Hawks version], Public Enemy, From Russia With Love and Bullitt. All The President’s Men, Do The Right Thing, Sixth Sense, Heat Of The Night, Shawshank, 12 Angry Men are added.

Horror / Monster (non-sci-fi): (3/2). Frankenstein gone.

So few are “great,” perhaps because the formula is so easily hackneyed and the earlier classics so satisfied the standard. Bela Lugosi’s Dracula is unaccountably omitted, considering its influence, inspiration and captive themes for popular culture.

Also omitted are any of Lon Chaney’s silent classics, including the very influential Phantom Of The Opera. Also neglected are The Exorcist, The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby, The Shining.

Romances (love stories, not incidental to other genre plots) (5/5). Added - The Graduate, Titanic.

This genre is scarce in "greatness", though as an element, love stories are universal: (boy meets girl, etc being the oldest and most durable of all film formulas, but clearly one least susceptible to originality and whatever other criteria define “greatness”).

Great screen lovers like Gable, Garbo, Monroe, John Gilbert, Valentino, Bette Davis, Audrey Hepburn made few “great” films, many pleasant romances.

Notably left off both lists are Roman Holiday, When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail / Sleepless In Seattle.

Sports (2/2). One genre almost shut out, which reflects the truth that this genre rarely produces greatness. I am willing to wait for time to prove Field of Dreams, or Bull Durham worthy. Pride of the Yankees, though a sentimental, warm memory is not a “great” film in a sense. Only Rocky and Raging Bull on boxing make the list.

Adventure/ Fantasy (1/2) Another left out is Adventures of Robin Hood in the genre which includes Raiders of the Lost Ark but omits Gunga Din.

Some directors have fared better than others. Wilder and Hitchcock still have 4 each, but Ford now has 2. George Stevens had 3, lost 2, gained 1. Chaplin, Huston, FF Coppola, Kubrick, Scorsese, Spielberg, and Capra also 3. Wyler now has just one as does Cukor. Mike Nichols joins Kazan and Victor Fleming with 2. Spike Lee, Brian De Palma, Welles, Polanski, Milos Forman, Zinnemann, Griffith, Eastwood, and Howard Hawks are represented by only 1 film each.

It is also interesting which of the great stars, so important in Hollywood history, are represented in multiple films and which in fewer, or none at all:

It is probably not surprising that the most popular and durable Hollywood film star, James Stewart, leads with 5. The only surprise of stars with four on the list would be Holden, who is lightly regarded by critics, but whose persona and talent for comedy, irony, and action made him a favorite of Wilder and other good film makers. Also with 4: Bogart; De Niro; Brando, and now, Hoffman and Ford.

There are fewer actresses with multiple entries: (4) Katherine Hepburn; (3) Diane Keaton; Fay Dunaway.

The character actors /featured player with the most appearances is Robert Duvall with 6 movies in the top 100.

The other surprise is how many great stars are represented with only one film on the list, neglecting other “classics” they made:
H. Fonda: (no Mr. Roberts; Ox-Bow; Clementine; Lady Eve);
Cagney: (no Public Enemy; White Heat);
Gary Cooper: (left out: Capra’s Mr. Deeds Goes to Town; Meet John Doe; Sergeant York; The Westerner);
Audrey Hepburn: (left out: Roman Holiday, Donen’s Two For the Road, Sabrina, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Charade);
Fredric March: (out: Nothing Sacred, Inherit the Wind; Death of a Salesman);
Charles Laughton: (Advise and Consent).
Paul Newman
Olivier: (no Hamlet; Rebecca; Marathon Man);
Spencer Tracy (what about: Captains Courageous; Woman of the Year; Adam’s Rib; Test Pilot or Boom Town;
Sidney Poitier: Lillies of the Field; Blackboard Jungle, The Defiant Ones.
Barbara Stanwyck
Edward G. Robinson
Bette Davis
Kirk Douglas

Many were shut out:
Joan Crawford
Irene Dunne (Show Boat, The Awful Truth;)
Greer Garson (Mrs. Miniver; Goodbye, Mr. Chips);
Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl; The Way We Were)
Robert Mitchum (Night of the Hunter; Out of the Past; Story of GI Joe.)
Richard Widmark
Glen Ford (Gilda)
Glen Close
Walter Brennan (five Oscars and a million films)
William Hurt
William Powell
Jane Fonda
Carole Lombard.

Finally, it is obvious that the list is still top heavy in sentimentality although the intervening decade has increased our appreciation of darker visions.

It should not be surprising that many of the favorite well-executed American classics (that have remained popular to succeeding generations) are “beloved” because they touch our emotions about the way we wish love or families or friendship to be.

It is noteworthy that films and film makers expressing more “realistic,” even cynical views about people, America and life are as well represented.

The Good German (2006)

Directed by Steven Soderbergh; written by Paul Attanasio, based on the novel by Joseph Kanon; director of photography, Mr. Soderbergh (under the name Peter Andrews); editor, Mr. Soderbergh (under the name Mary Ann Bernard); music by Thomas Newman; production designer, Philip Messina; produced by Ben Cosgrove and Gregory Jacobs; released by Warner Brothers Pictures. Running time: 105 minutes.
WITH: George Clooney (Jake Geismer), Cate Blanchett (Lena Brandt), Tobey Maguire (Tully), Beau Bridges (Colonel Muller), Tony Curran (Danny), Leland Orser (Bernie), Jack Thompson (Congressman Breimer), Robin Weigert (Hannelore) and Ravil Isyanov (General Sikorsky).

Like other contemporary film people, Soderburgh has alternating careers. His makes entertainments that provide the freedom for his independent experiments. Clooney has become the Mastroianni to his Fellini, abetting many of these projects. So, for every opening of an “Ocean’s #,” there is a “Syriana,” “Full Frontal” or “Bubble”. Soderburgh has tacked this zig-zag course for a long time. “Sex, Lies & Videotape” (1989), “Out Of Sight” (1998), “Erin Brockovich” (2000), “Solaris” (2002), etc.

Also like others, Soderburgh’s “experiments” can devolve into self-indulgent vanity projects, wish fulfillment that, as one critic observed, cares little about the audience. The dictum that an artist’s only duty is to please himself is usually a refuge of artists embittered by audience derision. Soderburgh is among the fortunate elite who can truly brag, “Oh I could be popular if I wanted to” and also can claim to produce “Art for its own sake”.

“The Good German” is a cute experiment that tries to bridge the gap to popular acceptance. The concept is to make a film the way the Studio made it back in the day — like “Casablanca”, but with a contemporary freedom to tell it like it REALLY was. Tell the unsentimental truth about love and war and the American Way, using the Studio crafts that created the myths back then — an anti-“Casablanca”. He also tries to recapture the mood of Carol Reed’s “The Third Man”, the “Neo-Realism” of Rossellini’s “Open City” and “Germany Year Zero” and some of the cynicism of Wilder’s “A Foreign Affair.” (Apparently, Soderburgh screened the film for critics paired with John Huston’s “The Maltese Falcon.”)

Many loved the idea and were licking our chops at the thought of seeing Clooney’s spin on Bogie; Blanchett’s on Bergman, Soderburgh’s on Curtiz and all those others. He fails miserably. And it is too bad.

It fails for a lot of reasons. First in my view, Attanasio’s script lacks polish, coherence, wit and surprise. Second, the acting is a disappointment: Clooney seems unsure of himself in every scene. Soderburgh’s instruction was to act like a contract player of the ‘40's, dropping the internalized modern acting. Clooney, who seems the most traditional of today’s screen personalities, apparently interpreted the direction as elimination of all Cloonyisms. Thus, we get no self-deprecating winks or stammered anger, no personality at all. The actor was more charming as Fred Friendly.

Blanchett is trapped in a “Deitrich” accent and faux fatale look that provokes comparison with her caricature of Hepburn in “The Aviator” crossed with Natasha of “Rocky And Bullwinkle”. The high contrast black and white close-ups are the antithesis of 40's glamour photography and the unflattering hard look, accentuated by the deep voiced German accent and her burnt out flat delivery fails to hint at the woman she was before the war that is now lost in her fight to survive.

And there is absolutely no chemistry between the stars. Clooney earned his star stripes in a car trunk and hotel room with J-Lo in "Out Of Sight." Here, we get a blackened screen kiss and quick cut back to plot.

Neither character, the "world weary reporter" returning to recapture his love, or the bitter survivor, is written, directed or acted with enough passion to make us care very much.

Sentimentality is overwrought emotion. Anti-sentimentality is not the absence of any feeling.

In “Casablanca,” the chemistry was carefully cultivated during the flashback sequence showing pre-war innocent intimacy between the lovers that has been lost. Soderburgh could not bring himself to insert such a now-hackneyed device and he finds no substitute. When he does use a brief flashback, it is to show Lena being raped and shooting a Russian officer to explain her frigidity and fear of the Russian Zone, while he conceals her deeper secret until the very end.

Jake’s obsession with Lena should be like Rick’s with Ilsa, repressing his cynicism for one last stab at redemptive love or at least self-sacrificing nobility. The script wants Lena to seem like a hardened femme fatale with a soft heart or is it vice versa? But neither the plot nor the style nor the pace nor the acting successfully conveys any of this feeling to the audience.

Soderburgh hopes that his stylish photography and cutting will carry the day. He wants to be a heroic auteur like Huston, Reed, Curtiz, Welles, overcoming trite material and studio strictures to create distinctive and personal art. He is correct that those classic directors had style, but he ignores the fact that for the most part, their work was intended to and did enhance the mood, to tell the story and make the audience feel.

Every movie of this kind tells both a micro and macro story — in the breathless Studio trailer parlance: “a love story set against a backdrop of intrigue and danger.” The macro story is the postwar beginnings of the Cold War, the rush to capture German scientists amid the wreckage of Berlin ... “where everything and everyone has a price...”

Lena’s husband is a mathematician who aided the leader of Camp Dora, the concentration camp / project to build the V-2 rockets. “Emile Brandt” is a composite of real figures including Arthur Rudolph, and his boss, “Franz Bettmann,” is based on Wernher Von Braun. Both Rudolph and Von Braun were captured by the US Army and hustled to America in Operation Overcast / Paperclip, evading war crimes trials for abuse of slave laborers, at least 20,000 of whom were killed (more than were victimized when the rockets exploded in England).

The script rather transparently mimics wartime and immediate postwar liberal sentiment. Jake is a reporter for “The New Republic” and he wants to uncover the nasty truth that America is willing to use Nazis and Nazi methods to survive the rocket age. His adversaries are American soldiers named “Muller” and “Shaeffer,” and a Congressman named “Breimer” while an officer who helps him is a Jew trying to gain evidence to punish war crimes. But there will be no happy ending in this re-write of history. The truth will be suppressed on the grounds of national survival.

The last scene is obviously intended to mimic and undercut “Casablanca’s” famous airport finale. Everyone who has tried to act nobly has failed. Emile's secret dies with him. Lena's guilt remains. Jake has traded suppression of the truth for Lena’s safe passage out of Berlin. Now he wants to know why she is so desperate to leave Berlin. She confesses that she is a war criminal; she turned in twelve of her fellow Jews to the Gestapo. This is meant to be a shock, a crescendo that reveals her corruption and the end of possibilities for redemption.

Like Rick, Jake will give up the love of his life. But not in order to continue any noble fight alone; not because she is worthy. Maybe because she is no good and Jake feels — well, we don’t know exactly what — disappointment, disgust, resignation, disillusionment, guilt?

The scene falls flat. You can almost hear the audience murmuring: “so what?” With what we now know about what everyone did to survive the Holocaust and The War and The Post War, Lena’s revelation seems almost trivial.

A better, more dramatic re-write would have echoed “The Maltese Falcon’s” climactic scene, allowing Jake to disclose his knowledge of the truth about her, cruelly forcing her to confess.

Alternate endings could then follow. (1) He could have done the sentimental thing: said something like, “Go ahead, get out of my sight. I can’t stand to look at you.”

Or (2) he could have said something really shocking and unsentimental: (With A Shrug) “Okay babe, it doesn’t matter. I want you anyway. Maybe you'll look better in Technicolor. Besides, who am I to judge? I spent the war getting drunk in London.”

Stranger Than Fiction (2006)

Directed by Marc Forster from a screenplay by Zach Helm.
Starring: Will Ferrell (Harold Crick); Emma Thompson (Karen Eiffel); Maggie Gyllenhaal (Ana Pascal); Dustin Hoffman (Prof.), Queen Latifah (Penny).

This is a comfortable movie to watch because, although it raises issues that purport to prod you into examining your life, it is only a “movie,” an unreal fantasy that is separated from real life. Thus, it makes you think, but not so deeply that you want to kill yourself.

It is the kind of movie made of compromise, using a “new” style to tell an old story (boy meets girl) and sell an older moral (carpe diem). It is derivative as hell but charmingly acted so as to be palatable. The actors act as if accepting the premise of the joke and willingly participate in the subdued ironic mood, each with a slight knowing smile that lets you off the hook in case you were tempted to take them seriously.

The premise plays on the commonly held neurotic fear that we might be characters in some cosmic novel. Suppose a guy really was such a character, a really dull guy, now forced to examine his life because he discovers that the novelist intends to “kill” him. It permits some amusing musing on literary convention as metaphors for life. Is our life meant to be comedy or tragedy? Are we controlled by the “omniscient” creator, or can we direct own lives?

Because of the expenditure of energy on the cool premise, the working out of “plot” to realize it is a bit thin on newness. The character’s arc — from buttoned up IRS auditor to free spirited guitar player — impelled by his love of a Bohemian girl baker who teaches him to break the rules and eat cookies, is the oldest of romance movie forms.

This is certainly a “movie movie” which, while claiming a literary heritage, is really indebted more to movies. Charlie Kaufman’s films, “Adaptation”, “Eternal Sunshine..”, and “Being John Malkovich”, all will come to mind. So, too, Woody Allen’s “Purple Rose Of Cairo.” You can even reach further back to Pirandello’s “Six Characters In Search Of An Author.” And the resolution smells of “It’s A Wonderful Life.”

Marc Forster was a decent choice as director. His previous experience with “Finding Neverland” showed a nimble visual handling of the creative process. (He was less successful with a not dissimilar variant — the psychodrama fantasy in which the action is played out in the protagonist’s mind — in the muddled “Stay”.) Here, he copies tricks with graphics that Spike Jonze introduced in “Fight Club” for the same purpose — to show how his character’s life is circumscribed by data. Otherwise, he plays it pretty straight, letting his actors breathe something like life into their characters.

Dustin Hoffman continues to show his limitations. His underplaying as a ploy for ironic wit tires and his line readings sound more like readthroughs than commitment. Emma Thompson is first rate as the novelist struggling with her duty to the character she created. Gyllenhaal has the intelligence and presence to make her character’s eccentricities seem interesting.

Ferrell surprised me. At first, he seemed to be simply following the familiar path of the dialed down comic who plays serious by flattening his affect. Robin Williams, Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler are the latest clowns to try this. They deepen their voices, hide their smiles, narrow their shoulders — they are medicated crazies, made sadly dull.

But Ferrell actually draws some felt emotions as his character’s dilemma becomes apparent. His newfound self-awareness leads him to self-examination, love, change, and regret. He conveys these changes with some subtlety and credibility, although he never completely convinces us that his character is much more than that — a cipher, an everyman, who exists only in a movie.

Ferrell’s “Harold” and Carrey’s “Joel” (of "Eternal Sunshine") are both freed from their chains by the female lifeforces who love them. Ferrell’s likeability makes you root for him while Carrey’s edgier persona distances him. Which is more “real” is a matter of taste: I tend to think Carrey’s is the far more human.

Charlie Hoffman’s end lines voiced by Carrey are more in line with my understanding about how love works than the standard treacly compromise ending Zach Helm’s script provides. Joel tells Clementine that he knows they’re doomed to fail, but the trip is worth it even if it produces excruciating memories along with the treasured ones.

That's a nice twist on the happy ending.

Ann Of A Thousand Movies

For some reason, the name Ann or Anne (or Anna, or Annie) keeps coming up as one of the most popular girl’s name in movies. Here are the ones I’ve gathered so far.

There are dozens of film versions of Anna Karenina, and a few of Anna And The King Of Siam. There is Annie Hall and The Diary Of Anne Frank and (Little Orphan) Annie. as well as Anne (Bolyn) Of The Thousand Days.

So why, huh? All these Annes seem to have one trait in common: spunk. Whether she survives or not, she’s got strength as well as a certain presence that the name somehow embodies for writers and audiences.

In fact, Ann is a popular name for regal characters or the actresses who have that name.

Audrey Hepburn was Princess Ann in Roman Holiday. Julia Roberts was Anna in Notting Hill. Mandy Moore was Anna, the president’s daughter in Chasing Liberty. Nicole Kidman was Anna in Birth. Naomi Watts was Ann Darrow in King Kong.

I’m not counting Anne Hathaway who starred as The Princess Bride. Or Anne Bancroft, Anne Baxter, Ann Sheridan, but they all had spunk.

And what about Annie Savoy (Bull Durham). She had almost everything.

Voice Of Her Generation: Sofia Coppola

In just three films - The Virgin Suicides (1999), Lost In Translation (2003), and last year's Marie Antoinette, Sofia Coppola has carved a niche for herself as the voice of her generation in the same way F.Scott Fitzgerald was of his.

Both generations are "lost," and for many of the same reasons.

Well, let me amend that. Coppola is at least the voice of her generation of girls while Quentin Tarantino is the voice of his generation of boys - which explains why Coppola's females feel so depressed.

Ms. Coppola's girls no longer live in the movie world of boy meets girl. They are confused - alienated from the old conventions but as yet without new rules. They are intelligent young women, but their intelligence makes them sadly aware of their predicament.

To rebel against the rules set for them by society (i.e., by their parents' male-centric generation) and therefore risk destruction; or to tolerate them, assuring a life of stultifying boredom? Other choices seem to be beyond them.

They can't decide what to do with sex, with love, with boys or men. And they have not much ambition to be useful or productive.

What they clearly get is style as an expression of self, and willingly indulge and overindulge ... until something important might come along. Their lives lack drama and they strive to create some. That drive is the center of the universe of pop culture.

If Coppola's social philosophy can be labeled as post-feminist (or as one critic wrote, post post-feminist), her story-telling style is anti-narrative post-modern.

She eschews plot, seems only faintly interested in dialogue as a vehicle to carry ideas. She prefers to slow the pace of her scenes to linger until the viewer is as bored as her characters - seemingly a way to create the sludgy mood of ennui and indecision that she is mostly interested in.

It is that mood that her audience most identifies with - the time of life when time wasting is a full time pre-occupation.

The girls in The Virgin Suicides are trapped in their suburban home in the 1970's with unsatisfactory parents and not much hope.

Coppola is not much interested in the question of why the five girls choose death, but rather wants to create a surrealistic comedic mood that seems to ask why not - why don't all girls, of that age at least, say fuck it and die.

Kirsten Dunst played the sister, Lux, who is the center of the tale, and other sisters are named Marie and Therese. Coppola chose Dunst to portray Marie Antoinette, who incidentally had a mother and daughter named Marie Therese. She chose Marianne Faithfull, an icon of 60's pop indulgence, to portray Marie's mother, who advises her daughter on the perils of fame.

Marie Antoinette's dilemma, as Ms. Coppola sees it, is not much different from Paris Hilton or any celebutante today.

Marie's lap dogs mirror any photo of Paris with her purse pups. The shoe montage, anachronistic teenage girlish conversations, and pop soundtrack choices make her point with a wink.

Today’s girl identifies easily with Coppola's Marie. She expresses herself by creating an image — in fashion and shopping, partying with cool friends. Her palaces were like our college campuses, dance clubs, dorms. She has style and as much independence as her position in society — i.e., her celebrity — allows.

Today’s girl accepts celebrity indulgence and extravagance as leadership qualities. The language of social responsibility is off her radar (or ipod) screen. She finds nothing wrong with spending on Manolos while African children go barefoot; binge eating and drinking despite starvation rampant on the other side of the palace moat. Modish charitable causes are merely effective PR excuses for red carpet exposure and parties till dawn.

Charlotte of Lost In Translation might as well be stranded in Versailles as in Tokyo. Her husband (played by Giovanni Ribisi) is close in type to Louis Auguste (played by Jason Schwartzman), both boys who are not quite satisfactory men, more interested in their toys and pals than in being lover or companion to their girls.

Bored, lonely, depressed, Charlotte (Scarlett Johansson) meets Bob (Bill Murray), who is in a similar state if not the same stage of life. Charlotte, like Bob, is too smart for the room, looking for something to be passionate about. She is instantly attracted to Bob, who is the opposite of all the young, attractive, aimless and humorless people she knows. He is old, weatherbeaten, aimless - but funny. The fact that Bob is a minor celebrity doesn't hurt her interest in him either.

I think what the audience latched onto was the sense of apartness that these two misfits share. They are aliens in a strange world (as are Marie and the Lisbon sisters) in which rituals and conventions are confusing, communication by articulated speech is laughably ineffective.

Charlotte is too mature for her age group, and Bill wants to still be silly and happy, instead of slowing down in his practical, settling-for-mediocrity middle age. They meet each other half way into their terrifying spins and hold hands for the time it takes for the movie to play, then very reluctantly part.

Coppola is less interested in what they say to each other than the mood they let themselves indulge - a sleepless but dreamy half-conscious state of faint amusement about their lives.

Except for one scene in which the couple try to sleep side by side barely touching each other and talk vaguely about life, the scenes and dialogue are pointedly pointless.

She allows Murray to riff in his usual anarchic way, gently funning all the quaint Japanese thingies, while Johansson chuckles appreciatively at his liberating wit.

In the end, the experience seems to help Charlotte a little bit, though none of her problems are solved.

And that's okay with the audience. They've got nothing but time to kill.

Deconstructing Woody

Woody Allen's latest efforts, "Match Point" and "Scoop" were disappointing but his work is always worth thinking about. He made his masterpiece, "Annie Hall" in 1977, and in the 1980's seemed to have gotten stuck in a rut of his own obsessions which limited his audiences. But in the 1990's, he made a lot of films that demand a second look.


Deconstructing Harry (1997)

Woody addresses the dilemma of a writer whose life is his subject matter. It is Allen’s wry explanation and apology for the subjectivity and self-consciousness of his work.

He explains how his many faults -- his ego, his self-deception, his prejudices -- affect his work and his life. He reveals his awareness of his selfishness, his irrational obsessiveness, manipulativeness, immaturity, his cruelty and disloyalty to people who love him, his inability to love and allow himself to be loved. Pretty funny stuff.

Like much of his work, there is an uncomfortable nastiness about his “lessers” that permeates this film. His acerbic wit spits out biting gags and spiteful caricatures at the expense of his usual foils: psychiatrists, fans, actors, women, children, parents, Jews, Gentiles, God, marriage, religion, trendy popular movements of any kind.

But, surprisingly, in the end there is a sense of backing off, a questioning of his harsh judgments, a confrontation with the reality that his whiny complaints about everyone else in his life are, just possibly, an unjustified reflection of his own fears and neuroses.

The point is masked in some talk about his “art” and “creations” and his “love” of his characters which Allen would skewer as pretentious if spoken by one of the “arty” characters in his other films.

Allen seems to say to us, in his whiny voice: “Yes, I know I am not a nice person, but at least I have talent and a willingness to lay myself, with all my faults, open in my work to you. Judge me by my art, not by my faults.”

The problem, Woody, is that your life is your “art,” so both are fair for judgment. An another thing: because you are self-deceiving, how can we trust the “truth” of your “art?”

Celebrity (1998)

Typical Woody in several respects. It is shot in black and white — by Sven Nykvist, Bergman’s cinematographer. It is about New York chic and, of course, the absurdity of celebrity.

Like other Allen films, the visual style and structure is derivative of another director. In the past he has emulated Fellini and Bergman. Now, he tries Robert Altman’s ensemble technique, splicing interlocking, overlapping stories with a notable cast, while the mood takes some from "La Dolce Vita."

Woody has enticed many stars and “famous” people to appear in small roles and cameos, including Bebe Neuwirth as a hooker looking for a book deal; Charlize Theron as a super model; Leonardo DiCaprio as a coked up, abusive film star (and Gretchen Mol as his moll); Melanie Griffith as a star; Winona Ryder as an aspiring actress. Donald Trump and the Buttafuccos, among others, are seen.

The story tracks Kenneth Branagh as a magazine writer who interviews celebrities and aspires to be one, and Judy Davis as his ex-wife, who becomes a celebrity while aspiring to be “real.” The very British Branagh adopted a New York accent and mouths Woody’s familiar speech pattern of stammering, self-deceiving, selfish, pseudo-sensitive lines with an impressionist’s master timing. He shares Woody’s fear of being naked, and spouts some of his favorite lines, especially about sex: “I’m polymorphously perverse.”

As all Woody’s message films, this one can be a bit heavy handed, though he thankfully eschews drama and keeps some good gags. We are shown the silliness of our obsession with celebrity in all its manifestations.

There is a scene in a pop plastic surgeon’s office. There is a film premiere, scenes at parties, clubs, book previews. There is a “reality” TV show, including episodes about “overweight achievers,” another with a confrontation between a rabbi, a skinhead, Klansmen, mobsters, and Black Muslims, all of whom share donuts and agents. There is a corrupt senator, a real estate agent to the stars, and show biz peripherals galore.

There are laughs about scripts to remake Birth of A Nation with an all black cast. Neuwirth chokes on a banana while showing Davis how to give a blow job. A cop asks DiCaprio for his autograph while arresting him for domestic violence. There is enthusiastic talk of a film which is “an adaptation of a sequel of a remake.”

Woody’s ear and eye for the lies, the polite insincerity of social intercourse, the concealment and self-deception that flows like white wine at all social gatherings with celebrities and celebrity sniffers; for the superficial bullshit that reeks in society, is unerringly true. Underlying all, is the aura of sadness about the fact that in our values, failure is defined as not being famous and fame delineates success.

Everyone Says I Love You (1996)

Cinema is the province of fantasy. Woody Allen has always used his films to let us in on his imaginative and self-indulgent longings. He has pictured himself as witty, charming, sexy, all of which requires a suspension of disbelief. He is a romantic at heart. Underneath the whining wisecracks, he has a sentimental streak a mile wide.

He has always indulged his loves in his films: New York, tall young girls and vulnerable women who need someone to teach them to laugh. He loves jazz, the Marx Brothers anti-pomposity gags, and romantic American standards (note the paean to Gershwin in "Manhattan"). He also loves nostalgia, especially the 1930's and 40's: tough guys ("Play It Again, Sam," "Curse of The Jade Scorpion"), radio ("Radio Days"), gangsters ("Bullets Over Broadway"). And he loves films and the romantic illusions they indulge.

He has also tried his hand at making films in the style of the film stylists he admires: Fellini, Bergman, Altman, Bob Hope, The Marx Brothers. It should therefore have been no surprise that he should tackle the movie musical to tell one of his tales of ensemble romantic neurotic foolishness, or that he should have chosen an imaginative and movie magic style to present his story through song and dance on the streets of New York, Venice, and Paris.

It is also never a surprise that many worthy actors are willing to expose themselves to the risk of falling on their faces working in his films. Here we have a basically non-singing and dancing cast trying their best with standards by Cole Porter, Kalmar and Ruby, and others. Ed Norton, Julia Roberts, Alan Alda, Tim Roth, Drew Barrymore, and Woody himself, all possess thin voices and none of the skill, talent, training, polish, or magic of Astaire, Kelly or Garland. None look or sound completely at ease while tiptoeing through the lyrics and melodies of these mostly familiar songs.

Only Goldie Hawn, who has training and a modicum of musical talent, shows confidence with the music. The rest are sometimes merely adequate (Barrymore, Roth, Alda), occasionally somewhat charming (Norton), sometimes embarrassingly off key (Roberts), sometimes amateurish (all).

A few of the numbers are performed by real “dancers,” in fantasy sequences: in a hospital — with staff and pregnant patients singing and dancing “Makin’ Whoopee;” and ghosts in a funeral parlor doing “It’s Later Than You Think.” Woody allows himself a turn with Goldie on a Paris quay in which she floats and flies gracefully around him. The thought occurs that Goldie was born a generation too late; she would have been a worthy understudy to Shirley MacLaine.

About 20 years ago, Bogdanavich tried an homage / send up of Cole Porter screwball 30's musicals with "At Long Last Love," which foundered on the humiliating self-conscious attempts by Burt Reynolds and Cybil Shepard in the elaborately staged numbers (though in retrospect, Shepard showed she could have handled the stuff if Minnelli or Donen had been there to guide her).

This film’s failure at the box office may be ascribable to a similar discomfort, the audience not quite “getting” whether this is an homage or a satire of the genre.

Or it may be due to something more sinister. A girl I knew despised musicals because, she said, she could not “get” why people suddenly began singing and dancing in the midst of dialogue. Compare that attitude with Bijou, who was of my generation. When we were in the Piazza San Marco in Venice, sipping tea on a chill sunny afternoon, watching the elegant strollers amongst the pigeons and listening to the orchestra playing, Bijou said she had a recurring wish that all the strollers would suddenly couple up and begin waltzing around the plaza.

That is the sentimental imagination needed to appreciate it when Woody begins to croon, “I’m Through With Love.” It is what impelled me to splash around in puddles while dating Bijou, after watching "Singin’ In The Rain" at the Encore Theater.

Only the recent "Moulin Rouge" and "Chicago" have risked reviving the mood of unreality that musicals require. Whether this generation can deal with it is yet to be seen.

Bullets Over Broadway (1994)

I recently watched this 1994 Woody Allen film again on cable and laughed more than I had the first time. I think that it is at least equal to Annie Hall among Allen’s work and maybe better for a number of reasons.

Like measures of baseball skills, movie making contains many elements. A ballplayer is measured on 5 skills: hitting for average, power, throwing, fielding, running. The unspoken 6th skill is “heart” which manifests in clutch performance in big situations, baseball smarts and guts.

I measure films by their scope, atmosphere, writing, editing, cinematography, acting. The intangibles I value include powerful imagery, surprise. I ask whether I am moved to strong emotions: laughter, tears, hate, fear; have I been caught up in the characters, story. The film need not “teach me something” but if it does, I want to know what the point is, and how well it has been made.

Allen has always been a film maker with a limited number of skills, but what skills he possesses are prodigious. He has always been able to make us laugh, maybe to laugh as hard as any film maker ever. He has created a character which when created was original, funny, and identifiably human, the “Woody Allen” character which was so perfectly realized in "Annie Hall."

This persona is as vivid and memorable in film history as Chaplin’s tramp, Lemmon’s schnook. His films created a genre, the New York minded intelligent romantic neurotic love story. Without him there would be no Billy Crystal, Steve Martin, Sara Jessica Parker, Ben Stiller or any number of independent comedy films, including the Coens’ and Farellys’ work. Jon Favreau wouldn’t exist without Woody as a guide.

But over the years that character has aged without much change and has become tiresome to us. In some, "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" and "Happy Ending," his character’s idiosyncrasies became unbearable. His trademark whining, which had been tolerable from a New York Jewish intellectual guy in his thirties who was trying to deal with the inadequacy of his life, is too much from a 65 year old man. As a possible love interest for Helen Hunt, Charlize Theron, and Tèa Leoni, he is absurdly miscast.

The scope of Allen’s films has always been “small” except for "Love and Death," which satirizes big thoughts like war and the meaning of life, philosophizing that cowardice is a virtue except in sex. He has always ridiculed pretense and “deep depth” as he called it, as well as trendy psycho-babble, but he has too often fallen prey to these.

He has always had awkward footing; rooted in Brooklyn, the Catskills, 30's movies and radio, 50's television and standup comedy, but drawn to the seriousness of Bergman and Fellini. Like all satirists, Allen has a mean spirited side to his wit. Unlike most, he often doesn’t restrain his (one of the defects of “auteurism”). His dramas fall flat, the characters wooden, the serious doings seem drab and forced.

Writing very funny and insightful gags has always been his strength. As he himself admits, gag writing comes easy to him, like drawing to an artist. But like all “artists” he strives to prove to himself that his talents are deeper. So he tries to write “serious.” Like his clarinet playing, his intelligence, diligence, and ability to learn the notes makes his serious films faintly interesting, more interesting than if done by lessers, but without the spark of genius which his gags have.

That is the theme of "Bullets Over Broadway." John Cusak is a playwright, a deep thinker and a conscientious and self-conscious “artist” who can talk for hours about “reality,” “truth,” and “integrity” in his writing. Chazz Parmentieri is a mob hit man who kills without remorse. Yet, Chazz has the talent, the gift of understanding and articulation required for great playwriting, and the integrity to insist on uncompromising adherence to his work. Irony and hypocrisy have always been concepts for which Allen’s wit are well designed.

Cusak represents Allen in the story. He is the whiney, muddled, striving artist with skill but limited talent. Without Woody in the lead, the film flies. It is perfectly cast and performed, with Diane Wiest and Jennifer Tilly chewing scenery and getting most of the laughs.

The intellectual theme is reminiscent of "Amadeus" in which Salieri has the passion and skill and Mozart the careless genius. But "Bullets" is a lot funnier.

Woody's work in the decade also included "Mighty Aphrodite" and "Sweet And Lowdown," both of which merit encores.

"The Black Dahlia" ... they shoot horses, don't they?

Movie making is like betting on horses. Breeding and track record don’t insure a winner.

This one is by Brian DePalma out of James Ellroy .

It includes all the requisite elements of LA Noir that worked so well in "Chinatown" "LA. Confidential" "True Confessions" and "Mulholland Falls": dark period post-war streets and night clubs, aura of illicit sex, Hollywood glamour, the smell of perversion and palms, corruption run amok among the police and the wealthy, sadism, blood, gore, complicated motives, a convoluted plot, femmes fatales, fedoras, rain, Packards, and coupes.

Its cast includes popular current stars Hillary Swank, Scarlett Johanssen, Mia Kershner, Aaron Eckhart and Josh Hartnett who seem enthused by the project.

Yet it runs a dreadful race and finishes way out of the money.

The 1947 murder case was the springboard for John Gregory Dunne’s novel on which a much better movie, “True Confessions,” was launched. There a mutilation murder of a stag film actress is investigated by the detective brother (Robert Duvall) of a monsigneur (Robert De Niro) of the local Catholic diocese. When the detective finds an influential Catholic layman (Charles Durning) is responsible, he has to choose between his duty and his brother’s career.

Here, the idea was going to be the friction between two friends who are detectives, one who is corrupt but obsessed with solving the murder, the other who is honest but obsessed with protecting his friend. The one gets murdered and the other solves the crime and in the process also solves the Black Dahlia murder. Along the way he falls for his friend’s sexy wife, suspects her of complicity in his friend’s murder, and gets sidetracked by a sexy, rich dame and her wealthy and powerful Chandleresque family with dirty secrets.

Somehow, neither the script nor the direction clarifies any of the above, filling in with mood stultifying exposition-filled voice overs. The film is heavily burdened by the conventions of the genre including sub-plots and seemingly disconnected plots that are supposed to weave together in a satisfying ironic conclusion, but somehow don’t.

As the original noir crime films showed, even an impenetrable mystery plot doesn't preclude success in the genre (the famous “The Big Sleep” paradox for example), if the director skillfully sets his mood, the script contains sufficient amusing dialogue and action, and the actors keep your interest. This one fails on all counts.

De Palma has always derived his style by stealing from his betters, Hitchcock, Hawks, and others. Here, he simply turned to Vilmos Zsigmond, his cameraman, said “noir” and began filming as if channeling Hawks, Nicholas Ray, and John Huston.

He shoots scenes from below, through window slats, curtained windows, rain spattered windows. There are shadows and slanting light. De Palma’s M.O. is to stint on coherence in favor of style. Here he forgot to include any style. His plants of clues and red herrings are so lazily transparent that we cease to care very early. Other plot turns are so obscure that there is no involvement in the mystery.

De Palma cares about none of it. Nor does he care about pace. There is no rhythm to the scenes; one merely follows another without concern for any affect. The film just keeps plodding along, like a dull shark.

De Palma even "quotes" his own film, "Scarface," with a bloody fall into a fountain, as if to remind us that he once had an idea of his own. However, this scene is preceded by a climb up a staircase by the detective who freezes and is unable to prevent a murder, a blatant theft from "Vertigo."

He has no new ideas for his actors either. Scarlett comes off as a too young version of Kim Basinger’s character in L.A. Confidential, Hartnett and Eckhart as weak versions of Crowe and Pearce. Hillary Swank is stranded as an almost laughable femme fatale. The four leads all appear to be pretending to be grown-ups, never for a moment convincing in their grandparents' clothes or adopting their hard boiled attitudes.

Mia Kirshner, who plays the victim in black and white film footage meant to be auditions and a stag film, manages to suggest vulnerability, reminiscent of Jennifer Connolly in a similar role in “Mulholland Falls,” but is never on for long enough. She should be a bigger star, which I first anticipated in Atom Egoyan's "Exotica" (1994).

The worst miscalculation is the campy playing of the wealthy family the detective falls into. Fiona Shaw (best known as the mean Aunt in the Harry Potter series), is awful as Swank’s dotty alcoholic mother, and Scottish actor John Kavannagh is almost as bad as the dad. The final expository mystery solution belongs more to a satire on the genre like Neil Simon’s “The Cheap Detective” or Steve Martin’s “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid.” It includes the much overused flashbacks with the reveal of the face of the killer which had been hidden from us in previous shots --- with a contrived gender switch from the previously misleading scene.

Just terrible. Send this nag to the glue factory.

"This Film Is Not Yet Rated"

Kirby Dick’s very funny and passionate probe of the MPAA’s rating system struck a few nerves with me.

As a moviegoer I was not surprised by revelations about the hyprocritical inconsistencies in the system. I’ve seen many films I thought were too violent for their PG-13 or even R ratings and the prejudicial treatment of sex in all its varieties was not a shock. The moviemakers interviewed make you shake your head about the insanity of their run-ins with the raters over “offensive” sex scenes. Dick laboriously but entertainingly makes his case about the lack of qualifications of the raters and the comical cruelty of the bureaucratic corporate process.

As a lawyer I was first appalled by the seemingly clear 1st Amendment and Due Process violations. That a small secret group should affect the ability of filmmakers to get their movies shown in theaters and sold in stores seems outrageous. My immediate reaction was amazement that in our litigious society and given how much money and passion was involved someone hasn’t sued their asses over this practice.

Thinking a bit more deeply into the issue as a lawyer, I began to see why no filmmaker has sued to overturn the system. It is “voluntary” and doesn’t “censor” in that it doesn’t ban or preclude release of any movie. The real issue is one that the industry cares more about than “Art” and “free speech.” The effect of an unwanted rating is that distributors will adhere to the system and not show the film (or sell it) to a large segment of the target audience - the youth market that gobbles up films at a higher rate than those the rating system permits to view them.

The MPAA is primarily a lobbying organization, intended to dissuade government from passing laws that restrict its “freedom” and to encourage laws that protect its business. The rating system was installed as a sop to conservative critics - both within government and social institutions - who threatened censorship.

The movie industry has a long history of self-policing in this way. The Hays Code and Breen Office of the 1930's was the studios’ response to public outrage over sex, drugs & violence in the silent and early talkie era. The Code was far more restrictive; no film could be released in the U.S. without its seal of approval.

The Code was broken in the 1950's, by European imports and, famously, by Otto Preminger in 1953's release of “The Moon Is Blue” without a seal of approval. That film was a mildly risque romantic comedy about seduction of a virgin by a playboy. The subject matter, playful tolerance of sex, and language (using the word ‘virgin’) were forbidden previously and Preminger was considered a courageous hero for challenging the Establishment.

It should also be noted that Preminger in 1960 was credited with breaking another studio self-policing policy – the blacklist of suspected leftist subversives when he credited Dalton Trumbo as screenwriter on "Exodus."

In the 50's and 60's the debate over “obscenity” and censorship was a hot topic in courts and legislatures across the country. Every municipality, county, and state tried to define it. National and local religious, educational, and parenting groups all disseminated reviews of movies and books, forcing bans in localities or among constituents.

At the same time the Supreme Court was struggling to balance the 1st Amendment with the borders of expression. The Warren Court was inclined to protect freedoms, but was under constant pressure, and eventually drew the line at laws and rules relating to minors. That was where a clear consensus was found. In two cases decided in 1968, the Court upheld a New York law prohibiting sale of obscene material to anyone under 17 (Ginsberg V. New York, 390 U.S. 629 (1968)) and struck down a Texas law that created a “Motion Picture Classification Board” only because its standards were constitutionally vague (Interstate Circuit V. Dallas, 390 U.S. 676 (1968).

Later that year, The MPAA system devised its rules. and the very next year, an “X rated” film, Midnight Cowboy, impressed critics and audiences, winning Oscars and making a lot of money. In 1971 Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” did the same. Russ Meyer also exploited the “X” with his soft core porn films and “Deep Throat’s” popularity showed that the “X” could in fact lure customers. Eventually, “X” films were refused advertising on T.V. and in many newspapers, and it was then limited to porn films.

In 1990 the “NC-17" rating replaced the “X” and the studios have been able to make it stick, due to the cooperation of distributors and mass market video sellers like Wal-Mart which refuse to sell such rated films.

Most producers have yielded to the market’s pressure by cutting their films to avoid the dreaded “NC-17” and as Dick’s film shows, it produces some absurd results, many injustices, and some harm, as when movies that might be meaningful for teens are denied them while they are drenched with the bloody “R’s” and “PG-13's.” When a potentially superior film like Bertolucci’s “The Dreamers” is tagged “NC-17,” it is a crying shame, denying wide distribution to a film that should have been seen and appreciated by everyone.

The marketplace may eventually make the arguments irrelevant. Already, "unrated" DVD's that include scenes excised for theatrical release are proving a profitable market. "Adult film" (i.e., Porn) DVD sales are in the billions. And the internet promises a market impossible to censor or restrict. Sophisticated home entertainment systems will soon make the neighborhood movie house remodel into something more useful and the "theater experience" will become like going to live theater, a special occasion for certain kinds of films.

In the 50's and 60's, films were shot in European and U.S. versions. I think that may happen again: films will be cut in several "sizes," and styles, one for the home market, one for theaters and one for the internet.