Because if you won't see good movies, who will?

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Peeping Tom (1960)

The movies of 1960 gave us two stories about disturbed, young men who stab people. England's Michael Powell gave us Mark Lewis in "Peeping Tom," and another Englishmen, Alfred Hitchcock, gave us Norman Bates in "Psycho." In "Peeping Tom," Lewis (Karl Bohn) is a camera man for British movies. He's the focus puller. His profession, however, is murdering women while filming them on a hand-held camera with a knife he's implanted into one of the legs of his tripod. He watches the last moments of their lives over and over again in his home film laboratory.

Watching "Peeping Tom," I couldn't help but notice the similarities between Lewis and Bates. Both kill women, though Bates is not gender exclusive. Both are dealing with crippling disturbances brought one by their parents, Norman by his overbearing mother, and Mark by his father, a psychologist of fear who was constantly filming Mark. They are both landlords, Norman has his mother's hotel and Mark has his father's house that he now rents out rooms as apartments. And both are more than a little voyeuristic. True, Lewis doesn't dress up in women's clothes, but when he kills with his camera he's impersonating his father just as Bates is impersonating his mother. Even the first scene between Mark and Helen (Anna Massey) in "Peeping Tom" is eerily similar to the first scene between Norman and Janet Leigh's character in "Psycho."

These are all coincidences, of course. The two movies came out only month's apart ("Peeping Tom" premiered first), they couldn't have been homages to each other, although there are moments in "Tom" that Hitchcock would have envied. But, when watching "Peeping Tom" as a companion piece to "Psycho," we learn a little something about why the latter has become one of the world's most treasured and recognizable movies and why the former was a critical disaster that ruined the career of one of England's greatest filmmakers.

Michael Powell, along with his writer and longtime collaborator, Emeric Pressburger had huge success in the 1940's and 50's with films such as "The Red Shoes," "Black Narcissus," "The Tales of Hoffman," and "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp," but when Powell (working with writer Leo Marks, not Pressburger) released "Peeping Tom," it all came crashing down. The film was pulled from theaters and reduced its director to making TV programs in between rare features for the rest of his career. Why, when they are both skillfully made, did "Psycho" further elevate its famous director while "Tom" destroyed Powell?

Mark Lewis, the murderer in "Peeping Tom," is a film director. And that is the central element of the movie. While carrying around his camera he tells people he's working on a documentary. He watches his killings in his lab as if he's looking at dailies. He enjoys them, the frightened, horrible looks on the women's faces, because he's gotten a good performance. True, to elicit that performance he had to stab them, but those are details. The first scene between Lewis and Helen, the sweet girl from downstairs that Lewis falls in love with ("I'll never film her," he swears) is telling in many ways; Lewis shows Helen home movies of himself as a young boy, taken by his father, of course. In the films he is being frightened by the man behind the camera. His father throws lizards in his bed, shines a flashlight on his eyes while he's sleeping, terrorizing him to obtain the response he's after; fear (in a sick turn, the father is played by Powell himself and young Mark by Powell's son). Then he shows her films taken of him at his mother's deathbed, her funeral and her burial, and when the next film starts of his father's wedding to his new wife (whom Lewis labels the "successor") Lewis tells Helen, "He married her six weeks after...the previous sequence." Director talk. As a present at the wedding, young Lewis receives a camera.

The best of the murder sequences brings all these elements into focus. Lewis, the cameraman, after a day on set at the studio, convinces a pretty stand-in (Moira Shearer) to stay after hours so he can work on his "documentary." Completely clueless, but plenty pleased to be the star in front of a camera for a change, the stand-in dances around the set while Lewis, the director, gets the lighting right. When it's time for business he tells her to look frightened. When she complains that she doesn't feel scared he describes to her the exact predicament she's in but doesn't realize ("Imagine someone coming towards you, who wants to kill you, regardless of the circumstances." "A madman?" "Yes, but he knows it and you don't.") The scene is perfect in its timing and the little in-jokes that writer Leo Marks has peppered the script with. And when the murder occurs and the body is dumped in a prop trunk on the set, its sets up a later scene. The real director of the real film needs to reshoot a scene because "We must have some comedy in it." The actress in the film (aptly titled "The Walls Are Closing In,") who has struggled to faint throughout the production is looking through trunks on the set, which is made to be a department store. When she finds the trunk with the body in it, her stand-in no less, she faints for real and sets up the film's funniest line.

What distinguishes "Psycho" from "Peeping Tom" is that with Hitchcock's films as with most great scary movies, the audience is let off the hook. Yes, Norman Bates frightens us and we get scared when he murders people, but it's just a story, right? A rogue murderer, isolated out in the middle of nowhere. True, we might lock the door the next time we take a shower in a small motel but for the most part we leave the theater with a little sweat on our brow and a silly grin on our face. We've enjoyed it. Oh, we enjoy "Peeping Tom," too, but Powell reminds us why we like scary movies. For the same reason Lewis enjoys his own movies. To see that look of terror on other people's faces, to share that most private of moments with them. Powell implicates us, throws us all in the same boat with his murderer. Think of yourself in a movie theater, the place is dark and you're watching people, people who aren't aware of you as they lead their private lives. Aren't you a peeping tom? Aren't we all? Powell's film broke the rules by stating that a theater seat is no more than a comfortable tree branch looking into the bedroom window that is the movie screen. That was an extremely uncomfortable idea in 1960 and it still disturbs today. With "Psycho," we get to distance ourselves, "Boy, I'm glad I'm nothing like THATguy!" But, if you enjoy movies, you can't completely separate yourself from Mark Lewis. When the victim of a movie goes down into the dark basement or the spooky attic, and you've ever smiled a little or thought "This is going to be good," then you have something in common with Mark Lewis.

Powell reinforces this idea by making his camera an active observer. It's always looking, peering, peeping, from behind shelves or pillars, from corners or staircases. Many of the shots are of Marks viewfinder on his camera, which gives the feel that the viewer walking is towards the victim. The vivid technicolor, a staple of Powell's films, has extra resonance here. It's not dreamlike, like black and white, or stylized, like other uses of color. The shots, especially through the viewfinder, are colored for realism. We are supposed to be aware that we are looking at something not just watching. All great scary movies horrify us, but "Peeping Tom" doesn't let us forget that they also fascinate us, which is maybe a little scarier than the stuff on the screen in the first place.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Being a Film Cricket

Aw. You know something, Marge? It's not that tough being a film cricket. -Homer Simpson

Movies are essentially three things; an art, a business, and an entertainment. There is no question that they are art. Like any art they can make us think and feel. Movies, when they're good, make us question the lives we lead, the beliefs we hold, the feelings we feel. They, for example, are the best form of art to makes us empathetic. Paintings and sculptures, while given to empathy, are only so successful. We are too actively aware that what we're seeing is static, a representation of one second in the life of the subject, frozen forever. Movies have life to them and that's what makes us empathetic. They move, so they move us. True, when not watching a documentary, it's still only an illusion. When we watch "Raging Bull" we know we are not watching Jake LaMotta punish himself, we are watching Robert DeNiro pretending to be Jake LaMotta punishing himself. But because DeNiro has earned it through his performance, and because Scorcese has deceived us in his direction, and because Paul Schrader has convinced us in his screenwriting, we care about this person. We don't like him, but we don't hate him or pity him. We empathize with him. Great art can do that to its audience. Movies, even once that aren't that great, do that with regularity.

Sometimes it's done cheaply. "Old Yeller" doesn't have to reach very far to gain our empathy. But consider "Silence of the Lambs." How do we feel about Hannibal Lector? He's established as a cannibal before we ever meet him but by the end, well, it's complicated. I don't think anyone who has seen that movie would want to spend any time with the man in real life but we have strange feelings towards that character. He's a monster and should be locked up forever, but, we almost like him. Think also of "Grand Illusion," a war picture. War movies are usually the best for creating good guys and bad guys, but the deathbed scene between the French and German officer is so poignantly sad we see through the visor of nationalism. Nothing is better than putting one into another's shoes than the movies.

Movies, of course, are a business as well. I don't have to go far outside the door of my central Los Angeles apartment to get constant reminders of this. Billions of dollars are spent to ensure you the consumer know what your options are at the marketplace that is the cinemaplex. Millions of dollars have been spent to hire the star that has been proven to make millions more back if he's in a new film this summer. At times, this aspect of the movies is at odds with the artistic side. "Awards are nice," the moneymen say, "but will it sell?" "Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen," will most likely end as the year's highest grosser but will it receive anyone's nod as the best film of the year? Michael Bay's perhaps. But this is rather unique in the art world. If I walked into a McDonald's and asked them to sell me one of those paintings of sail boats or trains they often hang in fast food restaurants (to bring a touch of class, you see), how much do you think I'd have to offer for them to part with it? Thirty bucks? Five, if I let them keep the frame? And if I waltzed into the Sotheby's and asked them how much it would take to walk out with a Picasso I'd better be prepared to pay more than thirty bucks and not expect a frame. This is, of course, because one is considered great and the other crap. Obviously, one is also very rare and the other common place but the point is, in most forms of art, popularity and quality often come hand in hand. The most famous painting in the world is so valuable it cannot be purchased. Tiger Woods is the planet's most popular athlete because he is the greatest at his sport. The biggest and most lucrative rock band of all time is also that young art's finest, The Beatles. Students across America are required to read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," "Invisible Man," and "The Great Gatsby," because they are some of this country's greatest contributions to the art of fiction. But how many students are required to see "Citizen Kane?" Or "Network?" Or "McCabe and Mrs. Miller?" Explosion-laden trash like "Transformers" will sell out retailers when it hits DVD, while great films like last year's "Ballast" are impossible to find. But that's business. For all the throngs that lined up to see this summer's pedestrian, dime a dozen "Star Trek," how many have the patience for an original idea like the one's shown in 1998's "Dark City," a box office flop?

But because they are a business, and because business is so good, movies are also an entertainment. Am I discouraged by the numbers that "Transformers" is putting up? Would I think less of someone who went and enjoyed it? No, of course not. Movies are meant to be enjoyed and for all my talk about the seriousness and artistic value of them, most people use them for their primary purpose; diversionary escapism. Do I thumb my nose at those who want to kill a few hours at "Transformers?" No, it's their right, plus, I have a feeling they knew what they were getting into when they bought the ticket. In fact, if your aim is to leave your brain at the door and give in to loud pointlessness, you could hardly do better than "Transformers." But not only are movies the great art of empathy, the are the most accessible. It doesn't take a film education to understand a great film. While as technical and complicated as a car engine, because films deal primarily with feelings they can be understood by children and adults. And that fact doesn't diminish the quality of a great film. The films that are national treasures are that way because they touch a nerve we all share; the difficult choice that right and wrong so often is ("Casablanca"), the importance of home ("The Wizard of Oz"), doing your best to be a good man ("It's a Wonderful Life"), and the irrepressible coolness of frankly not giving a damn ("Gone With the Wind"). So, as an addendum to the thesis of my previous paragraph; while the top earning films from week to week are a caravan of forgettable and sometimes regrettable entries into the film ether, the art of film has it's own priceless valuables that are as great and rare as any Picasso. Take away all the technical jargon, all the shop talk about weekend grossers, and the artistic obscuration, a great film is a great film because it's enjoyable to watch. It's a better use of two hours than doing nearly anything else. They're fun, dammit. And everybody likes fun. Even "Sophie's Choice" is a little fun.

So movies; art, industry, entertainment. And I become even more interested in those that are all three at once, like "Raiders of the Lost Art," or "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" This blog is dedicated to great films like those two and many others that fulfill at least one of the tree things movies can be. On a pace of about a film a week there will be a new essay about some of the greatest films of all time. They won't be ranked, although I intend on selecting the first one hundred from a personal list I've made with rankings. There might be odd essays on film topics or particulars peppered in but the purpose of this blog is to honor this pieces of art. I don't have the resources to give timely or comprehensive reviews of current films but I'll be sure to write something up on whatever I happen to see. I'd like this to be an interactive experience with suggestions from readers on what films I should write about and see because if there's a fourth thing movies are, they are conversation pieces. That of course depends mostly on me being a quality and productive writer. I'll do my best. Enjoy.