Asterix and Cleopatra

Asterix and Cleopatra
YouTube viewing

I was halfway through art school when I decided I’d rather study cartooning than illustration. Many of my friends wanted to break into professional comics, which to them meant Marvel and DC Comics. A few already did while they were still in school, so I thought I had to draw superheroes too, and to draw like them: men and women with perfect physiques in a semi-realistic style. I did my best, but it was a struggle. One of my teachers recommended I look to a different model of successful comics: a series out of France called Asterix.

European comics, or bande dessinée, as the French call them, have a rich and diverse history, one which is not dominated by superheroes. For years, the newsstand magazine Heavy Metal exposed Americans to a more grownup and sophisticated alternate world of comics storytelling devoid of the childish power fantasies of Marvel and DC, but the tradition goes back much further, with one of the biggest and most important titles of the medium being the series Tintin. And it wasn’t just original creations: for decades, Donald Duck was a megastar in Europe in comics form.

European comics characters crossed over into movies and TV when Kevin Feige was still in diapers. Some examples Americans knew about for years include the animated film version of Heavy Metal; the Jane Fonda flick Barbarella, and of course, The Smurfs on Saturday mornings!

Walkabout

Walkabout
YouTube viewing

Walkabout is actually an Australian co-production with the UK, helmed by an English director, Nicolas Roeg, but it’s plenty Australian enough. Next year will mark its fiftieth anniversary, and time has been good to it. As recently as 2016, Jenny Agutter and Luc Roeg (the director’s son) spoke to The Guardian about the making of the film.

Here’s a brief explanation of the Australian outback and here’s a short video of it from 2014. I find it both beautiful and terrifying in its starkness: it’s pure nature untamed, as far removed from civilization as you can get on Planet Earth and it dares you to survive there if you can.

Director Roeg gets it all in his film: the bleak and harsh landscape mixed with the breathtaking beauty of its plant and animal life. I found myself thinking of the experimental film Koyaanisqatsi in the sense of the contrast between the modern, “civilized” world and the primal world of nature. Indeed, Roeg encourages that contrast in the editing; in one sequence, the hunting and slaughtering of an animal is juxtaposed with a butcher in a meat market.

As a story, I didn’t completely get why Agutter and young Luc get there in the first place: in the beginning we see them on what looks like a picnic in the outback with their dad, and then all of a sudden it’s like Dad goes bananas and takes out a gun and shoots at them? And then he sets his car on fire and shoots himself? Director Roeg offers nothing in the way of an explanation, and ultimately it doesn’t matter—he had to get the kids in the outback and lost somehow—but the way it unfolds is bizarre.

Agutter and Luc’s nameless protagonists adjust to their situation better than you’d think: no freaking out at the reality of their situation—one minute being on a picnic with Dad, the next struggling to survive in the midst of a wasteland after seeing Dad commit suicide. You’d almost think they were on holiday at times.

You know what became of Agutter after this—Logan’s Run, American Werewolf in London, among other things (apparently she was also in Captain America: The Winter Soldier and the first Avengers movie too); and Luc Roeg went on to become a producer (he worked on We Need to Talk About Kevin)—but I wanna talk about David Gulpilil, who portrayed the Aboriginal dude who encounters them during their sojourn. To me it didn’t even seem like he was acting; I thought he was real.

Walkabout was Gulpilil’s first film; he was seventeen at the time. Roeg found him when he went location scouting in the Aboriginal community of Maningrida, in Arnhem Land, where Gulpilil went to school. Walkabout made him a sensation. He’s been in some big movies since: Crocodile Dundee (of course), The Right Stuff, Peter Weir’s The Last Wave, the Hugh Jackman-Nicole Kidman romance Australia, plus some TV work. He was born in the Northern Territory district as a Yolngu and is also known as a ceremonial dancer, singer and tracker, in addition to being a children’s book author and a mentor to other Australian indigenous peoples.

Xala

Xala
YouTube viewing

I’m glad I found one pre-1980 African film during this cinematic world tour to write about. I can’t say I know anything about the kinds of movies that come from the motherland; any film set in Africa I’ve seen was usually produced by an American studio, like Disney’s Queen of Katwe, or a European one, like the animated Kirikou and the Sorceress or the more recent A United Kingdom. The Gods Must Be Crazy may be the only other African-produced film I’ve written about here (South Africa and Botswana, according to IMDB).

Senegal is in west Africa. Here’s a pre-virus profile of the country from the BBC, but the key bit of info here is this: Senegal won its independence from France in 1960. Three years later came the debut film, a short, from a man who would go on to become one of Africa’s most prominent cinematic voices: Ousmane Sembène.

A Matter of Life and Death

A Matter of Life and Death (AKA Stairway to Heaven)
YouTube viewing

Powell & Pressburger. I’ve wanted to see a Powell & Pressburger film for the longest time. I think I might’ve seen The Red Shoes during my video store years, but if I did, it might have been playing while I was helping customers and therefore couldn’t give it the attention such a movie deserves.

You can spot a P&P film for several reasons, but mostly because of the color. Did any other filmmakers in the Golden Age era use color as brilliantly as P&P? (Douglas Sirk probably comes closest.) Someone will correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure, but I suspect whenever Hollywood used Technicolor back then, it was in a more show-off manner: as part of an “event” picture, like Oz or Wind or Robin, or for a splashy musical or a Cinescope picture.

I don’t get that sense from P&P. They used it prominently and they were obviously proud of it, but I suspect it was treated as just one of several integral elements to their movies which they happened to do better than most: the cinematography, the lighting, the set design—and I can sense this just from looking at clips of their films... though I could be wrong.

The One Armed Swordsmen

The One Armed Swordsmen
YouTube viewing

You would think a one-armed swordsman would be a rare thing indeed. You would think well, center of gravity is off, balance is tricky, upper body strength would be compromised—it might be possible to go through life that way if you work hard enough at it, but you wouldn’t see very many guys doing it, and certainly not in the same place. You would think that.

But you don’t live in a kung fu movie.

What would a cinematic trip around the world be without some chop-socky fighting action? I remember watching martial arts films on the weekends on TV (I believe Channel 5 here in New York would show them) and they were like superhero cartoons in a way: the over-the-top violence, the exaggerated characters, the outrageous abilities they possessed. And all of it badly dubbed, of course.

No doubt Asian countries see these films differently than we Westerners. Martial arts films speak to their history, their culture, their mythology, and though they may seem alike after so many of these films have been cranked out, one could say the same about American Westerns, with whom they have quite a bit in common. And when it comes to martial arts films, one name stands head and shoulders above the pack: the Shaw Brothers.

Battleship Potemkin

Battleship Potemkin
YouTube viewing

In Soviet Russia, movies watch you!

Okay, so much for the cheap joke...

Here’s everything you need to know about the Russian Revolution of 1905. Here’s how the town of Odessa factored into the revolution as a result of the pogroms against its Jewish population. And here’s the reality behind the mutiny on the Russian navy’s flagship that inspired the breathtaking film Battleship Potemkin. Pay attention because there’ll be a quiz later.

And as an aside: much, much better writers than Yours Truly have discussed the pros and cons of communism. I’m not interested in going down that path. Leave discussion of Lenin and Marx (not that one) on the table. My only concern is the movie.

The Strange World of Coffin Joe

The Strange World of Coffin Joe
YouTube viewing

I guess it was inevitable during this travelogue of foreign movies that I’d come across one I didn’t like. Understand, I’m trying to find more than just straight dramas. I’ve also been looking for films in other genres, so when I discovered this Brazilian horror anthology, I knew I had to include it, even if there are better classic Brazilian films out there. But we can learn from the crappy movies too, right?

Jose Mojica Marins died back in February. He was the director and star of the film and creator of the “Coffin Joe” character, who appeared in ten films, three TV shows and various other pop culture detritus and is as big in Brazil as Jason and Freddy are to Americans. JMM played Coffin Joe in the majority of the films.

Coffin Joe’s first appearance was in the 1964 film At Midnight I’ll Take Your Soul, which JMM also co-wrote and starred in. It’s a heartwarming tale of an undertaker looking for the “perfect woman” to bear the perfect child (shades of Rosemary’s Baby), but rather than take out an ad on Match.com, he does things like kidnap his best friend’s wife and pick up chicks on holidays. It was the beginning of Brazilian horror cinema. Here’s a piece from 2017 on modern Brazilian horror.

The Strange World of Coffin Joe is an anthology hosted by Coffin Joe; he appears in the beginning spouting some pseudo-mystical gobbledygook meant to sound scary. There are three stories: one about a doll maker and his daughters who are terrorized by some hoodlums; one about a seller of balloons who stalks some random girl; and one about some wacko professor (played by JMM) who tortures a couple to prove his theories about the true nature of love.

Since it’s an anthology, comparisons spring to mind immediately of Creepshow, Trilogy of Terror, Tales From the Crypt, Twilight Zone The Movie, etc., all of which came later, of course, and had much bigger budgets. The third story is perhaps the “best,” in that it’s the goriest: a Grand Guignol of Biblical allusions, cannibalism and sadism. For 1968, I suppose this particular story is way out there, as disturbing as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Last House on the Left, The Exorcist and other early gore-fests, and y’know, kudos to JMM for pushing the boundaries...

...but I didn’t see why I should care about any of it. The first story was laughably predictable (though I’ll concede it may not have been that way in 1968) and the second was dull and dragged on too long. The women in all three stories were passive and flat in character, the editing was choppy, the acting amateurish and the stories were less than compelling.

I don’t know if Strange World is characteristic of the Coffin Joe films in general, but I suspect it is. A low budget is no excuse for a bad story—George Romero did so much with so little. Still, JMM clearly is an important figure in Brazilian cinema, so he must’ve done something right.

UPDATE 5.25.20: As you might expect, Le has thoughts on this: “Although I’m not very familiar with his work, I can say Coffin Joe is the equivalent of Ed Wood. He did trash films, but did what he loved (no wonder he took nearly 40 years to finish his trilogy, due to censorship and budget issues) and he also embraced the trash persona, appearing in costume in several events.”

La Strada

La Strada
YouTube viewing

Okay, I know La Strada is a Fellini movie, but can we talk about Giulietta Masina for a minute? The first time I saw her was in Nights of Cabiria and I thought she was terrific in that, but omigod, I think I’ve fallen in love with her after watching her in this one. She is adorable! She has eyes like Joan Blondell, a sweet and endearing smile, and I love that pixie haircut of hers.

And she was an excellent actress. She may not have been a sex goddess like her fellow Italians Sophia Loren or Gina Lollobrigida, but after seeing her as a spunky, worldly streetwalker in Cabiria, she went in the other direction and played an innocent waif of a girl who you just wanted to hug and take as far, far away from Anthony Quinn as possible. Madonna and whore: not exactly an original combination, but what can I say? That’s how I discovered her.

Awara

Awara (AKA Awaara)
YouTube viewing

Bollywood! I first explored the wild world of Indian cinema last year with my profile of contemporary superstar Amitabh Bachchan, but this time I thought I’d look at classic Bollywood, with a film all the way from 1951 called Awara.

I suppose I had assumed the tradition of Indian musicals was a more recent phenomenon; not sure why—but this film, too, is a song-and-dance joint, albeit a rather dramatic and serious (AND LONG) one. To someone in the West more familiar with the structure of shows featuring the music of the Gershwins, Irving Berlin, Rogers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, the Sherman Brothers, etc., Bollywood music can sound pretty different.

And I’m not just talking about the melodies and rhythms, which were nice. I noticed within this movie lots of recurring refrains within individual songs and a predilection for metaphor and emotion over storytelling and characterization. The music in Awara communicates the story, but not to the same degree as a Western musical—and perhaps that’s not a big surprise, given how melodramatic the story is.

The Pearl (1947)

The Pearl (1947)
YouTube viewing

Movie fans who think of Mexican cinema these days think of the “three amigos:” Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuaron and Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu. Between these three guys, they’ve won ten Oscars, made millions and thrilled audiences worldwide with their singular, unique visions.

Mexico has a strong tradition in film that goes back at least as far as the dawn of the sound era in Hollywood. People speak of a Golden Age which produced a wide variety of stars and filmmakers, some of whom crossed over into American cinema. Aurora has blogged at length about some of these stars; here’s a wider study on the era from last year.

Mexico underwent a wave of urbanization in the 1940s, and the film industry benefited. Studios developed in Mexico City, and while the US and Europe were making war movies, Mexican cinema was able to be more diverse in its subject matter, and prominent filmmakers emerged. One example from this era is a fella named Emilio Fernandez.

M

M: A City Searches For a Murderer
YouTube viewing

Fritz Lang left his native Germany in 1933 to escape the Nazis (Joseph Goebbels had offered him a job as a studio head) and three years later, worked in Hollywood, where he made such films as The Big Heat, Clash By Night, Scarlet Street, and many more in a career that lasted into the 60s. Prior to all of that, he was a successful filmmaker back home as well, and for a long time, he worked with a collaborator who was a vital part of that success—his wife.

Thea von Harbou was a novelist turned screenwriter. She met Lang while working on an adaptation of one of her novels in 1918, which led to an affair. In 1920 she divorced her husband and married Lang two years later. During the 20s, she worked not only with Lang but other filmmakers, including FW Murnau and Carl Theodor Dreyer. In 1927 she adapted for the screen her novel Metropolis. (Lang did some uncredited work as well, but the screen credit belongs solely to her.)

TVH would divorce Lang in 1933 due to him having multiple affairs. That was the year Hitler came to power in Germany and regrettably, she supported the Nazis. However, she also went on to directing a few films and writing many more—plus she spoke out publicly in favor of women’s right to abortion.