Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Directed by Vittorio De Sica

Screenplay by Cesare Zavattini, Suso D’Amico, Vittorio De Sica, Oreste Biancoli, Adolfo Franci and Gerardo Guerrieri, based on the novel by Luigi Bartolini

Runtime: 1 hr, 29 min

In my hobby of watching classic cinema, one conclusion I have arrived at is that the most fragile situations are always the most heartbreaking.  Whether it’s the car engine sequence in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep or the slowly dissolution of the doorman’s psyche in The Last Laugh, nothing brings about depression quite like life slipping off the tightrope.  Today’s picture, the first picture to ever top the prestigious Sight & Sound poll of the greatest films of all time, most certainly fits into that particular mold.

The name of the film is Ladri di biciclette, literally Bicycle Thieves.  Though often translated into English as The Bicycle Thief, that title is a bit misleading; there is more than one such character in the film.  Our protagonist is Antonio Ricci (Lamberto Maggiorani), a struggling family man in post World War II Rome, has just found work placing posters around the city.  It has given him the chance to provide for his wife, Maria (Lianella Carell) and his young son, Bruno (Enzo Staioli).  On first day on the job, however, his bicycle is stolen; unless he can recover it, he is going to lose the position.

Losing the bicycle is devastating for Ricci.  That we see the build-up to moment makes it even more wrenching for the audience.  From the Ricci’s cramped quarters to the throng of people in the opening sequence desperate for work, the film’s universe is riddled with poverty.  Just acquiring the bicycle involves tremendous sacrifice for the family.  Ricci had previously pawned his bicycle, so Maria pawns off the bed sheets from her dowry to raise the money to buy it back.  Even then, they don’t get all that much from it: 7,500 lira, less than what Ricci would make in one month pasting up posters.

And then, in one fell swoop, it’s all for naught.  Someone pilfers the bicycle before Ricci can react.  It’s a position of hopelessness and weariness which Maggiorani portrays beautifully.  Despite, like the rest of the cast, being an amateur actor, Maggiorani's performace is completely convincing.  His demeanor is bleak throughout most of the film, oftentimes frustrated and occasionally rage-filled.  Yet, every once in awhile, he is able to reach down and find something, even the most insignificant thing, to smile about.

Equally as powerful is Staioli as Bruno.  Unlike his father, Bruno has yet to be beaten down by harshness of lower-class Italy.  He’s ecstatic to give his father’s bike a cleaning before his first day of work, and has the mental acuity to instantly recall the serial number when they go searching for it in the markets.  This is not to say that Bruno is never depressed.  Far from it—in fact, he probably has a wider range of emotions than Ricci.  He is the mirror for the audience, reacting to the plight of his father as best as someone his age can.  In this sense, then, Bruno is the heart of Bicycle Thieves.

As wonderful as the two leads are, the real star of the film is post-war Rome.  Virtually the entire city is in some way desperate.  The apartments are all cramped, the police are unresponsive and the unemployment office is in way over its head.  All of it beautifully photographed, with intimidating empty space for the exteriors and deep gray shadings indoors.  Some of it borders on expressionist, but grit underlines nearly every frame.  The Rome of Bicycle Thieves is most definitely the place where as stolen bike really is a matter of life and death.

Of course, good luck telling the picture’s aristocracy that.  Even more heartbreaking than the loss of Ricci’s bicycle, to me at least, is the indifference of the wealthy.  Two instances stand out.  First, when Ricci first reports his stolen bicycle to company, the man in charge just shrugs and tells him to look for it; when another worker asks what’s been lost, he replies, “Nothing.  Only a bicycle.”  There’s no reason for the boss to bother doing much, since there’s no shortage of unemployed men with bicycles.  What gets lost, though, is Ricci’s humanity.  Only a bicycle, indeed.

The second incident, involving Bruno, is even more gut-wrenching.  At one of the few happy sequences post-theft, Ricci and Bruno stop in a restaurant to get food.  The clientele is much for refined and the waiters clearly look down on the two.  But what is most unnerving are the looks that Bruno keeps getting from the rich family having lunch at the table behind them.  Ricci attempts to reassure his son, but their presence only reminds the father of all the money, of the promise of a stable life, that the stolen bicycle has robbed him of.

So, in conclusion: Bicycle Thieves is the sort of film that, when you've finished watching it, makes you hope somewhere in the back of your mind that you accidentally walk in front of a speeding train.  When even the momentary reprieves from the daily grind serve to remind the protagonists that their lives are broken, you know that the Earth is actually a cold dark place.  I cannot stress how moving Bicycle Thieves is as a motion picture.  Just make sure you keep several boxes of tissues on hand for the last ten minutes.  Fair warning to you, there.

Montenegro (1981)

Montenegro (1981)

Directed by Dušan Makavejev

Screenplay by Dušan Makavejev, Donald Arthur and Branko Vucicevic

Runtime: 1 hr, 31 min

I’m going to level with you here: I was kind of frightened to watch this film.  I’ve not watched any of Yugoslav director Dušan Makavejev’s other films, but as a fan of the Internet video series Brows Held High, I did have a passing familiarity with his work.  From watching the episodes on W. R.: Mysteries of the Organism and Sweet Movie (both NSFW), I gleaned that Makavejev’s oeuvre was both nonsensical and sickening.  Yet, I had also heard good things about one of his more conventional films, so I took a deep breath, pressed play…and had a wonderful time.

Montenegro, despite the title, is actually set in Sweden, while the main character is an American.  Marilyn Jordan (Susan Anspach) is a frustrated and bored housewife, married to Swedish businessman Martin (Erland Josephson).  Marilyn feels trapped in her domestic life, but does not have proper way to vent her frustrations.  At first she engages in behavior that ranges from strange to borderline psychotic, which eventually raises Martin’s suspicions.  He has a psychiatrist (Per Oscarsson) analyze her, but it is to no avail.

I have not yet begun to describe this plot.  This is one element of Montenegro that delights me; the plot relies on so many ridiculous contingencies to move forward.  So: the Jordan family accidentally calls to two taxis to take Martin to the airport.  Marilyn decides to take the second in order to travel with Martin, but she gets detained by security over gardening shears.  She just so happens to meet a woman emigrating from Yugoslavia; with nowhere to go and not knowing Martin missed the flight waiting for her, she joins her party and ends up at “Zanzi-Bar”, a combination commune and strip-club.

A rational story, I’m sure you will all agree.  Yet insanity, both clinical and situational, lies at the heart of Montenegro.  Sometimes, it’s played for laughs, as is the case with the scenes at Zanzi-Bar, including a remote controlled tank with a phallus for a gun turret (I never thought I would have to write that).  But during the film’s first half, the madness draws sympathy.  The audience can tell that Marilyn is not happy with her husband and home life, but it is difficult to determine whether her attempts to poison the dog and set the bed on fire are acts of rebellion or of a woman losing her grip on reason.

Whatever state her character actually is in, I must argue for a round of applause for Anspach; her performance is phenomenal.  She embodies so many emotions all at once: delirium, anger, despair, curiosity.  Given both the loveless environment he lives in and the ridiculous world of Zanzi-Bar she moves into, such confused feelings are expected and delivered expertly.  Though her early scenes come close to being silly (the way she eats all the family’s Wiener schnitzel sticks out), Anspach is consistently a fascinating screen presence.  The other players are wonderful, too, but all pale in comparison.

Aside from the group of Yugoslav immigrants, why is this movie is called Montenegro?  It turns out that a man who calls himself Montenegro (Svetozar Cvetkovic) becomes Marilyn’s love interest over the course of the film.  Cvetkovic is one of the weaker actors in the film, and the chemistry between Montenegro and Marilyn is very shallow, but that’s kind of the point.  Montenegro is Marilyn’s sexual liberator; he is largely an object of lust that gives her an avenue to express her own frustrations, but it is abundantly clear that any future between the two would not end well.

Given the lustiness of their scenes together, it’s surprising that the consummation of Marilyn and Montenegro’s attraction is not the most explicit part of the film.  Then again, at least compared to what I’ve seen of W. R. and Sweet Movie, I was shocked by how restrained Montenegro is.  There is no nudity whatsoever until the start of the third act, and even then it only pops up sporadically.  A sequence involving the phallic tank and a stripper at Zanzi-Bar does carry a lot of connotations of sexual assault, but it’s clearly part of an act and the rest of the film is rather tame.

Makavejev does make some choices in the picture that don’t quite work.  For one, the use of Marianne Faithfull’s version of “The Ballad of Lucy Jordan”—written by Shel Silverstein of all people—is, while, thematically appropriate, far too on the nose play over the opening credits.  Also, there’s this odd international motif in the film which Makavejev plays up: an American woman, living in Sweden, meets a group of immigrants from Yugoslavia who live in Zanzi-Bar and for some reason flew there on a Japan Airlines flight.  Maybe Makavejev had a grand statement in mind, but the juxtapositions are just off.

Those, obviously, are nitpicks.  Montenegro is such an enrapturing film that I kind of feel guilty for being so skeptical of it.  Makavejev knows how to get the pathos out of film and while he has an affinity for the weird, the bizarre, and the use of gratuitous nudity, his finished product is never boring but always enticing.  This doesn’t mean that I’m in any rush to watch Sweet Movie; filmed defecation is several lines too far.  But I definitely come out this experience respecting him as a storyteller.

The Invisible Man (1933)

The Invisible Man (1933)

Directed by James Whale

Screenplay by R.C. Sheriff, based on the novel by H. G. Wells

Runtime: 1 hr, 11 min

Watching The Invisible Man, or rather writing my review of it, reminded me of an excerpt from Plato’s Republic, regarding the Ring of Gyges.  The ring gives the wearer the power of invisibility, and this legend segues into a discussion of whether man would be virtuous if he could then do evil without fear of repercussion.  I have no idea if the filmmakers or original novelist H. G. Wells had this tale in mind in crafting the story, but I do think the basic premise weighs heavily on the 1933 film adaptation.

Claude Rains, making his American screen debut, stars the title character, otherwise known as Jack Griffin.  Griffin is the scientist who meddles in things in which man should not be meddling.  Specifically, he has found a way to become completely invisible, and he heads off to a country inn to work on the antidote.  What he doesn’t realize is that a drug in the concoction has been found to cause madness, and he’s clearly fallen victim.  Griffin becomes fixated on causing chaos, using his powers of invisibility to bring the entire world to its knees.

Rains has become one of my favorite actors over the years, and he does not disappoint here.  While it is a bit unsettling that the audience does not get to see him act, his voice-over work is still top notch.  His intonations alternate between a refined, determined pacing and the ramblings of a man losing his grip on sanity.  Note how in one of his interactions with his lover Flora (Gloria Stuart), he begins by rationally describing what inspired him to work on invisibility—fame, fortune, legacy—but slowly descends into impassioned screaming that he’s able to conquer the world.

That sequence is emblematic of the tensions contained within the film.  For one, how exactly does one read Griffin as a character?  On the one hand, he seems to be a devoted scientist who just gets over his head, and legitimately wants an antidote so he can share his new discovery with the world.  Then again, even before the madness fully sets in, he’s left Flora without a word of explanation and is pretty rude to the innkeepers.  We don’t get the benefit of facial expressions, so all that’s available is his dialogue and motivations.

Yet perhaps that’s intentional.  So little can be determined about Griffin because of his invisibility, which more or less enables one to project onto him as a character.  One could easily live out a power fantasy through the character, or see him as the personification of the darkness of man set loose on a country village.  He’s an open-ended character, which is one of the film’s biggest strengths.  (It’s also why the final shot of the film, in which the invisibility wears off, is a bit problematic—it undermines the notion that Griffin is defined as “the invisible man”).

Further tensions can be found in the tone of the movie.  The Invisible Man manages to expertly balance the requisite horror movie elements with anarchic, slapstick comedy.  The film juxtaposes Griffin promising to kill his partner and colleague, Dr. Kemp (William Harrigan), with a scene in which Griffin messes with the cops and skips down a back road—wearing one fht officer’s pants—singing “Nuts in May”.  It’s as if they come out of two different films, in a good way, which complicates the meaning of the movie.

Is the audience supposed to find such mayhem to be enjoyable, frolicking fun, an escape from the rules of civil society?  Or do Griffin’s comedic acts in fact inspire terror that one could find glee in causing train derailments?   By positioning horror elements next to comedic ones, the film present a scenario where the repressed desire to do ill with impunity is placed directly on screen, and almost dares the viewer to not get engaged with the terroristic merriment.  Enticing as it is, it is also horrifying in its implications for the morality of man.

Furthermore, the special effects used to create the illusion of invisibility, which are stunning by the standards of early 1930s technology, may contribute to the wish fulfillment that the film presents.  The clarity and seamlessness of Griffin’s reveal of his power contrasts sharply with his exterior appearance whilst invisible: face covered in bandages with dark glasses and artificial nose.  His exterior is repulsive and immediately frightens onlookers, but his form as Invisible Man is sleek and state-of-the-art.  Who could resist entering stripping naked and wreaking havoc with that sort of transition?

As I write this review, I feel that I may seem a touch hypocritical, considering that two weeks ago I trashed Slightly Dangerous for its blatant wish fulfillment.  But I think the difference is in presentation.  The Invisible Man is meant to be enticing in its depictions of evil; how else could one get a semi-sympathetic protagonist?  But this is ultimately a horror story, and Griffin’s reign of terror over England is depicted in exactly those terms.  There’s a distinct message at work: in this universe, at least, evil does indeed lurk in the hearts of men.  But oh, how tempting it is.

I'll Wait for You (1941)

I’ll Wait for You (1941)

Directed by Robert B. Sinclair

Screenplay by Guy Trosper

Runtime: 1 hr, 13 min

Most of the movies that I end up reviewing have pedigree of some sort.  Maybe they have a star-studded cast, well known sequences, or a big-name directed.  Hell, a few have been notable for just how catastrophic they were.  At the very least, almost all of them have a page devoted to them on Wikipedia.  But then there are the films that time seems to have forgotten, the footnotes to cinematic history.  Usually this is for good reason, but venturing into this morass of the forgotten can yield surprisingly pleasant results, such as I’ll Wait for You.

A remake of the 1934 film Hide Out, the film centers on racketeer Lucky Wilson (Robert Sterling).  He’s a smooth talker and ladies man who is on the run from the authorities, led by Lieutenant McFarley (Paul Kelly).  Lucky gets shot in process and takes shelter on a Connecticut farm owned by the Miller family.  He immediately takes a shine to the farmers’ older daughter, Pauline (Marsha Hunt), and it becomes clear that the feelings are mutual.  The question is whether Lucky can reconcile his new environs with his slick living lifestyle.

There are a lot of elements in I’ll Wait for You that are very rote and obvious (not the least of which is the ending, thanks to the title).  You have the standard fish out of water story early on, as Lucky, a lifelong New Yorker who’s never been north of Yankee Stadium, must cope with life on the farm.  You have the racketeer background, which of course focuses on nightclubs and laundries used as fronts.  And you have the romantic bond built as a woman nurses a man back to health.  In short, this movie would not recognize Originality if it sat in its lap.

Yet this is not necessarily a problem.  A formulaic film can still be done well, and while I’ll Wait for You is far from spectacular, it is enjoyable.  For one thing, the formulaic elements are not all that painful to swallow.  What bothers Lucky most about farm life is not the lack of anything to do or the cultural values, but rather all the animals that never stop squawking.  It actually communicates his relation to his surrounding very well: whereas he doesn’t notice the sound of traffic, he does notice every different bird that chirps the night away.

In addition, it would be a bit too easy to paint the Miller family as either antagonistic to city-slicker Lucky or as purveyor of infinite, commonsense wisdom.  They’re just colorful folks.  The father (Henry Travers) is a well-intentioned but lacks any sort of verbal filter and loves to spin yarns, while his wife (Fay Holden) is caring to the point of smothering.  Their younger daughter Lizzie (Virginia Weidler), meanwhile, is kind of bratty is but clearly in love with life and her rabbits.  They bring some texture to this universe and serve as more than mere window-dressing.

That said, what gets the film over its rote screenplay is the strength of the lead performances.  Sterling shows a wide range of modes throughout the film: seductive, sincere, confused and cocksure.  He shines best when his character faces an emotional state which is new to him: legitimate, honest to goodness love.  Considering that his previous relationships to women have been shallow, it would makes sense for his character to react strangely, even violently to the fact that he’s now experiences mature love, that he might enter a mature relationship.

Marsha Hunt is no slouch, either.  True, Pauline as a character seems a bit too ideal as a lover, which makes her seem less than human.  But Hunt brings a dimension to the character which the screenplay does not.  When Pauline reveals that she has been in love with Lucky from the moment she first laid eyes on him, Hunt’s body language presents the possibility that this is not in fact true, that she is rationalizing her emotions at the moment, in response to Lucky declaration of love and less than subtle advances.

Even if the love between the two leads is a little hard to swallow—at least on Pauline’s end—it is difficult not to root for them.  I’m not sure this is entirely a good thing, considering that Lucky is still a crook and that seems to have a violent streak to him when he gets flustered.  It’s the sort of relationship which seems destined for a crash and burn at some point.  This makes the movie’s bittersweet ending appropriate, but I think that the presentation of the resolution is a bit too optimistic.  I somehow doubt that Lucky and Pauline is the romantic couple of our time.

Nevertheless, I’ll Wait for You proves to be a rather sweet story with potentially dark undertones.  Granted, a more daring or original film probably would have explored those lurking concerns, and that’s the sort of film that I would have preferred.  But that’s not the story that the film wanted to tell.  The filmmakers wanted to make a simple story of burgeoning love cut short too soon, and on that front they succeeded.  At less than an hour an half, it’s not a major time investment, and either way it’s inoffensive.  You could do a lot worse, is what I’m saying.