Great Dictator, The (1940)

The Great Dictator begins with a note telling us that any resemblance between Hynkel the Dictator and the Jewish Barber is purely coincidental. Is this supposed to be a joke, or is it Charlie Chaplin’s way of separating his comic persona from Adolf Hitler? Chaplin, a world recognized celebrity since the nineteen-teens, was arguably the most popular man in the world when Hitler took power in Germany in 1933. It is said the dictator crafted his mustache after Chapin’s Little Tramp to feed off of the comedian’s popularity. Was it also a coincidence that Chaplin retired his Tramp persona in 1936’s Modern Times?

Charlie Chaplin’s most daring film takes place in a fictionalized version of Germany called Tomainia. In a prologue set in 1918, years before Adenoid Hynkel takes power, a bewildered Jewish Barber is thrown into WWI and suffers a severe injury that keeps him in hospital until WWII. Chaplin plays the Barber and, of course, the dictator, giving credence to the fact that the opening note may be a lighthearted wink to the audience who, in 1940, would recognize Chaplin anywhere. But The Great Dictator is an unusual comedy, something more sinister for it satirizes one of the darkest memories of world history. The Barber escapes, eager to return to his beloved shop just as the Tomainian storm troopers begin severe persecution of the ghettos. The Barber meets Hannah, a Jewish girl, who assists in fending off the storm troopers. This is one of the many scenes that are laugh out funny but exist with an undercurrent of dread, panic, and sickness because the true events, 70 years later, fueled further by modern examples of bigotry, are no less painful. Perhaps because WWII exists so vividly in motion images the horrors will never fade.

The Great Dictator contrasts the experiences of Hynkel and the Barber during changing times; for the dictator, changes towards perfection; for the Barber, a disintegration of everything he understands.

The film’s most famous scenes give us a stark contrast to both of Chaplin’s characters, and stand as perhaps the greatest examples of Chaplin’s dedication to rehearsal and perfectionism—in short, to his craft. The first is the chilling, beautiful and bizarre dance Hynkel performs with a feather-light globe of the world. His Ministry of the Interior, Garbitsch, informs him that with their new plans Hynkel will become Emperor of the World, a thought that sends the ruthless dictator up the wall, literally. He dances to the music of Wagner, incidentally Hitler’s favorite composer. It is the opening to his Lohengrin, a light, airy but pretentious piece of music. Chaplin’s moves are narcissistic and bold, graceful but futile. In trying to juggle the world, cradle it, domineer it, Hynkel pops his globe and is left with a deflated, impotent piece of rubber. The Jewish Barber then shaves a man to Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5. Here Chaplin’s Barber is a cousin to his famous Tramp. The Barber lathers the man’s face, takes his blade, sharpens it, and with perfectly precise motions hits every note of Brahms’ innocent, frenetic music.

It is interesting that with all of Hynkel’s ambition, his contribution to the world ends with a deflated balloon—a waste for someone who, like Hitler, had the brilliance to muster the masses for a common goal. The simple Barber, with the mere shaving of a man, enriches the world with his craft. The choice of music, too, shows Chaplin as a Renaissance Man and as someone who, despite preferring silent films, was keen on using every element of sound to make his point: Hynkel is marked with heavy, pretentious music, the Barber with humane culture.

Chaplin’s craft belongs to an era of silent film comedy. In both sequences, silent except for the music, we can witness the skill and precision of Chaplin’s art. He was not improvisational as many might hope; someone who could simply step in front of a camera and command it. He rehearsed. The choreography, the timing to the music, is such that we know that music was prerecorded, and that Chaplin would go from beginning to end mastering every gesture, would perfect difficult tasks like spinning a ball on his fingertip, scaling a tabletop with grace, and memorizing not only the music, but the particular performance of the music so that his impact is striking. This is not something that can be achieved in post production. Like Fred Astaire, Chaplin is seen often in medium or long shot, and the camera simply stays on him and we see his performance with minimal cuts, and in the case of the shaving sequence, arguably more awe-inspiring, one continuous shot. Among other things it allows us to lament the loss of great talent when we view our contemporary movie comedians. Chaplin understood that moviemaking was not spontaneous but the result of dedication, obsession, and doing and doing again.

It is difficult to look at the realities of the Nazi’s activities, but Hitler himself, someone who was so serious and seemed to lack humility, is prone to satire. It is one of the purposes of art to critique the world, and the powerful who control it, and to create for the public a better world. Chaplin does all this, and that he managed to create his epic in 1940, in Hollywood, after a war and great depression, with political tensions high and politicians eager to prosecute anyone who would contradict their ideology, is a testament to his popularity and socio-political awareness. He often resembles Hitler perfectly, no more so than when wearing the double-cross trench coat, and his inflections and diction when speaking his Tomainian gibberish remind me of Hitler’s great speeches in Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will. That Chaplin is a great comedian only helps him further, but the scenes with the Jewish Barber in the Ghettos were not so funny. Yes they were, but I felt sick watching them. We know what went on there, what would happen if the Nazis arrested anyone for any reason, where they’d end up. I don’t think it was inappropriate for Chaplin to make this film. The subject should not be off limits. My great admiration from the director stems from the fact that his films are often sad. They’re filled with pathos and meaning and have relevance to our society. In The Great Dictator, there are numerous scenes of the people hiding in the Ghettos, afraid and angry. I could imagine the real life scenarios like this, and unlike in Chaplin’s film things would not turn out so well.

Much has been made of the film’s controversial ending. It was Chaplin’s Jewish Barber’s speech to the soldiers of Tomainia that got him a file at the FBI; the Barber, mistaken for Hinkel, is to make a speech about the recent invasion of Osterlich. While facing the podium, unlike Hinkel whose words were so brutish that they’d bend the microphones, the Barber pleads for peace, preaches against greed and intolerance, and offers all those listening an opportunity for change. This speech, some 6 minutes long, is a stark difference to the rest of the picture. I think it’s a great ending, something that caps Chaplin’s political satire and offers hope where in real life at that time there seemed very little.

I will say no more to add to these discussions. I’d rather examine the film’s beginning. I don’t think it works. It’s not funny and feels like a separate piece to the rest of the film. We see the Barber fighting in WWI, how he becomes injured. In fact this prologue serves the narrative later as here he befriends a soldier who will become prominent in Hinkel’s Tomainia, but the sequence feels more like a one-reeler Chaplin might have made early in his career. And indeed did make in the 1920s. The comedy is broad and general, the effects small and unprofessional, and it throws off the structure of the film. It also seems remarkably unprofessional, as if it was an afterthought thrown in after the rest of the picture was cut together. We don’t see Hinkel’s rise to power, and seeing the Barber’s, I feel, gets the film off to a slow start.

There is a reason Chaplin is considered the greatest screen comedian of the 20^th Century. His films stood for something more than broad physical comedy. They have touching stories, and his images often contained gaiety and gravitas. With The Great Dictator, a boldly political work, he risked offending the dictators of the world when instead he could have made a film about Napoleon. At the time, many of Hitler’s “great” military accomplishments were still ahead of him, and the US had not officially entered the war, and Chaplin, sensing as much of the world probably did, what was about to happen, decided to do something about it.

Great Dictator, The (1940)

Director: Charlie Chaplin

Writer: Charlie Chaplin

Stars: Charlie Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, and Jack Oakie

USA

In English

Runtime: 124 minutes

IMDB link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0032553/

Sun, The (2005, Solntse)

Looking at a photograph of the real General MacArthur and Emperor Hirohito I was stunned at how authentic Aleksandr Sokurov’s The Sun looks and feels.  Perhaps because world politics today are ugly and cruel and shaped by misnomers and backstabbing, it is shocking to think that enemies can come to an understanding to save the lives of millions in the midst of a violent war.  The Sun is neither an anti-war film nor propaganda.  It is an artistic document of one of the most forgotten and powerful events of the 20^th century.

Issei Ogata is masterful as Japan’s 124^th emperor.  The film begins much like Sokurov’s first entry in his tetrology on the world’s powerful dictators, Moloch, an indictment on the comical stupidity of Adolf Hitler.  Hirohito, like Hitler, wanders around his dark castle (upon further reading I understand it now to be a laboratory, the only stone building left standing on the Emperor’s property) while outside a war threatens the security of the state.  A thick fog clouds everything, an obvious metaphor for the cloudiness of an angry mind.  Moloch was a terrible film, a (dare I say it) propaganda film against Hitler that mitigated the seriousness of the Nazis, portraying all concerned as vapid jokesters without a lick of military sense.  As much as he should be despised, Hitler was a brilliant man.  This languorous beginning to The Sun is very boring I must admit.  Nothing much happens in the first 40 minutes, or so it seemed while watching.  Hirohito is dressed by his many servants who actually believe him a celestial being.  His food is served and all but chewed for him.  He appears as a retarded child, his mouth quivering from nervousness or lack of imagination.  His steps are small and he is a very formal, preoccupied man.  His interests are marine biology and poetry.

At times he appears like the great tramp, Charlie Chaplin.  This thought occurred to me as Hirohito looks through a photo album of Hollywood stars.  He comes to and admires the beautiful face of Chaplin, though we learn he does not know who the actor is.  He looks at this photo album just after looking at an equally distant album of personal family photographs.  Neither reality is close to him.  Revered as a god, Hirohito cannot speak to anybody but his chamberlain.  He has been prevented from doing things that make one an individual.  He is a mal-adjusted child.  What surprised me was the human journey that Sokurov carves of his character.

The film begins after the atomic bombings.  Hirohito had already made his voice heard for the first time on Japanese radio.  The film, in nearly every description you might read, is about this deity coming to terms with his ordinariness.  For someone who was once a god, this might seem like a sad tale.  That’s what I thought going in, but Sokurov treats this as a story of a man who for the first time discovers his humility; someone who comes to worship his common status, who appreciates conversations and attention from lesser beings.  Hirohito is slowly giving up his powers, and part of his settlements with General MacArthur requires him to be photographed for the western world.  The American and British press is briefed beforehand, instructed on the correct pronunciation of his name, the distance they must remain away, and the time allotted to snap pics.  Hirohito wanders outside his palace dressed more like a hobo than an affluent man.  He dons a bowler and wears a jacket and pants that are maybe a little too big.  He reminded me most of Chaplin’s tramp in this moment.  He wanders around while his photo is taken, happy as a lark, posing humorously with his nose to a flower.  For the first time we see this defeated man happy.  The photographers call him “Charlie” and the palace guards are angry at the disrespect.  Hirohito grabs the rim of his hat, like Chaplin often did, and scampers back into his palace.

The great scenes in the picture are the dialogues between Hirohito and MacArthur.  Robert Dawson is terrific and bears a striking resemblance to the American general.  MacArthur is a bit smug during their first meeting.  As someone also of power whose reach is in check by law, he finds it both absurd and amusing that the emperor cannot even open a door for himself.  He is still upset about the attack on Pearl Harbor.  What impressed me most is that the film, from their first meeting on, put me in sympathy with the Japanese emperor.  When at first he always spoke through an emissary, he addresses General MacArthur in English.  He admits he can speak several languages and is proud to be Japanese, disappointed at his country’s loss, but not furious at the enemy.  MacArthur, we soon learn, is doing something desperate to end the war and spare Hirohito’s life.  The man defied centuries of tradition to speak to his people via radio in order to prevent further killing.  Perhaps MacArthur was in need of an adversary who did not hate humanity.  Hitler kept the war going for days after his suicide and Mussolini was taken down several times by his own countrymen.  Here was a leader in the Axis powers who showed compassion, and after such a dispassionate war I believe MacArthur needed something positive to happen.  I may be romanticizing too much, but let it be known that Hirohito was emperor of Japan until his death in 1989 and was never tried as a war criminal.  This is a great story and one that I was so impressed to see portrayed level handedly.

The initial smugness of MacArthur led me to believe Sokurov, like many European filmmakers, would treat the Americans as impatient and vicious dogs.  Especially where Sokurov was born after WWII and raised during the Cold War, I imagined he would have a negative attitude towards the US.  MacArthur is a decent man in this film.  His relationship with Hirohito livens the material, makes it a near masterpiece.  I would very much like to see it a second time.  I wonder if the beginning will still feel too long.  The film might improve on further viewings because, by the end, we know the whole story and can observe different facets of what we are first shown.

Aleksandr Sokurov is a curious filmmaker.  Mentored by the master Andrei Tarkovsky, Sokurov’s movies are always heavy and loaded with big ideas.  He seldom has made a successful film.  I know European film lovers have reverence for him.  His films always show in competition at Cannes, but other than The Sun I’ve only found one other masterpiece: Father and Son.  I have not seen Taurus, Sokurov’s second in his collection of dictator films.  After the disappointment of Moloch, I was not interested, but I am now.  The Sun surprised me because the longer I watched it the more I understood.  Perhaps when they are all finished, the series will say something important.  The Sun, for lack of a better word, is sensitive towards its subjects and surprisingly optimistic towards politics.  Perhaps Sokurov has an answer waiting at the end of his art.

Sun, The (2005)

(a.k.a. Solntse)

Director: Aleksandr Sokurov

Writers: Yuri Arabov, Jeremy Noble

Stars: Issei Ogata, Robert Dawson, Kaori Momoi and Shiro Sano

Russia

In Japanese and English

Runtime: 110 minutes

To purchase The Sun from Kino International in the US, visit Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Sun-Robert-Dawson/dp/B003C9VF96/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1302217339&sr=1-1

To purchase the superior Artificial Eye disc from the UK, visit Amazon (UK):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sun-DVD-Issey-Ogata/dp/B000C05YG8/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1302217397&sr=1-1

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0439817/

Disengagement (2007)

The problems of a nation are paralleled in one family.  Ana and Uli are step-siblings, reunited by the death of their father in France.  Ana has been raised as a Westerner by the New York born father, and Uli was adopted shortly after the father divorced his mother.  Uli was raised on the Gaza Strip.  In France, the siblings enjoy each other’s company.  We learn that, apparently, the father was not a very loving man.  He did not want Uli’s mother to move to Israel and had since lived his life apart from Uli.  Ana has no ties to her Jewish heritage.  Ana is a frivolous, flirtatious woman with no ties to anything, except an erotic, intense interest in her half-brother.  The death of their father reveals a secret long forgotten: Ana had a child at a Kibbutz many years ago and unbeknownst to all the father has spent a lot of time with the girl in Israel.  In order for Dana to receive her grandfather’s inheritance Ana must bring it to her herself.

For those unfamiliar with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, Disengagement might be confusing.  I myself have only a superficial understanding of the conflict, but as I understand it after WWII when the allies were dividing up all of Nazi Germany’s conquered lands, it was seen fit to give the land of Israel to the Jewish people.  “A land without a people for a people without land” was the mission statement; only the Palestinians had been living in the Holy Land for centuries and were forced out in a global effort to atone for the misdeeds against all Jews in WWII.  It was an immoral decision, politics and religion aside, since millions of people who had committed no crimes were forced into an area at the edge of the country, and since then lives have been lost and hatred spews on the Gaza Strip.

One does not need an opinion as to which side is right.  In fact, neither and both are.  What Disengagement makes clear in scene after scene is that there are only losers in this conflict. 

When Ana arrives in Israel she is forbidden to enter the same Jeep as her brother.  This is the first in a small series of events that forces her to shed her thin skin.  Juliette Binoche, only the greatest living actress, plays Ana in a curious way.  The beginning scenes in France are too long.  Part of why they feel this way is that Binoche is almost unbearable to watch.  Her voice is so odd, shrill and high-pitched.  It’s clear her accent is more American that her normal speaking voice, but I think she and director Amos Gitaï made a very bad decision.  I said Ana is a frivolous woman but that is an understatement.  When we first meet her she is annoying, and Binoche is giving a bad performance.  I was shocked since she has been perfect in all the movies I’ve seen.  What Gitaï does is create a contrast, showing Ana before her introduction to the problems of the Middle East and after, having been involved in disengagement, the process of removing a group of people from their homes.  This contrast, however, is very short sighted.  Just because Ana is a Westerner doesn’t necessarily make her carefree and vapid.  Many Americans don’t have a clue as to the problems of Israel, but in all fairness the problems are too many to follow and people have lives and concerns of their own to deal with.  This character is more archetypal.  That doesn’t excuse the material.  It would have benefited from a more leveled depiction of a human being unfamiliar with these problems.

While I was disappointed in the first half hour of the film, once Ana and Uli, played by Liron Levo, arrive in Israel the film becomes terrific.  It is a political drama.  Not a thriller; director Gitaï carefully crafts an even playing field where every human being, Israeli and Palestinian, are decent, loving people.  Uli, we learn, is an officer for the Palestinian army, and Gaza is going through disengagement—all the Israelis are to be removed from their land.  No one can claim to hate the other side, and this is the stupidity Gitaï revels in pointing out.  The people respect each other.  The Palestinians soldiers are given sever orders to not injure the Israelis.  The Rabbi offers his love to Uli just before the gates are torn open and the soldiers perform their duties.  Stuck in the middle is Dana, Ana’s forgotten daughter.  An Israeli, everything she has in life, her garden, her students, will all be taken away from her.  Dana’s reunion with her mother is brilliantly staged.  Ana circles around the school playground.  She knows which teacher is her daughter, and Dana recognizes Ana from the photographs her grandfather showed her.  Dana touches her mother’s face and they hug.  Few words are shared, but because this situation is so understandable, the tears from both actresses are very well felt.

Unavoidable in any anti-war film is the view of the soldiers.  In a visual medium they suffer the most because we see them perform their duties even when, in the case of Disengagement, they hate what they have to do.  I wish there was a way to fix this problem.  There is a way, by depicting the ridiculous discussions of the politicians or rebels that decide the orders, but in an intimate film like this these scenes would distract from the material.  It’s a shame because Uli is a loveable person.  Liron Levo is a revelation here.  He is one of the few male actors alive that embodies humility and strength on the screen.  The finale reunites step brother and sister, just after Dana is lost in a van carrying out the Israeli civilians.  When once their friendship was so strong Ana detests the man in uniform before her.  He reassures her they will find Dana, but all Ana can scream is, “Leave me alone.”

One of the most heartbreaking images appears on the edges of the frame.  When a reading of the Torah is disrupted by Uli and the Palestinian soldiers, a Jewish worshiper, as he is being removed, hugs tightly the soldier forcing him out.  I was so struck by this image, so brilliantly on the fringes of the film, and it has so much meaning.

Disengagement (2007)

Director: Amos Gitaï

Writers: Amos Gitaï, Marie-Jose Sanselme

Stars: Juliette Binoche, Liron Levo and Jeanne Moreau

Israel / France

In Hebrew, English, French, Italian and Arabic

Runtime: 113 minutes

To purchase Disengagement visit Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Disengagement-liron-Levo/dp/B00455JE58/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1301206042&sr=1-1

IMDB link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0871512/

Night and Fog (1955, Nuit et brouillard)

No matter how many times you hear the expression this movie will change your life, it is a rare moment when it does.  Night and Fog did for me, not in a truly life-altering way, but it made me recognize the documentary genre as a powerful form of film.  I would watch documentaries (which I have always enjoyed doing) but never bothered with a film’s technique, impact or aesthetic value.  As far as I thought, in order for a movie to move me, the situations, the emotions, all had to be larger than life.  Then I saw Night and Fog.

It’s not a big movie.  Most people have never heard of it, but I saw it at a store and picked it up.  After completing its short running time, I was stunned—numbed is probably more accurate.  My only cinematic journeys into the Holocaust were narrative dramas like Schindler’s List, a movie I’ve never enjoyed because of its sentimental and overtly emotional approach to the subject matter.  I don’t particularly dislike weepy films (if that is indeed the correct term) but the emotions films like Schindler’s List spark go against my feelings about the Holocaust, and the effects of war in general.  The Holocaust is the darkest memory of the 20^th Century, and I don’t look at it with soft, tangible feelings.  It’s depressing to think anyone or group could get away with what the Nazis did.  It doesn’t speak well of mankind.  When I saw Night and Fog, finally—finally—I had seen the Holocaust film that hit the right tone.  The film does not ask us to feel any which way about the Holocaust.  It is matter-of-fact, unsentimental and powerful.

As far as technique, I’d say director Alain Resnais didn’t have to do too much to stir his audience.  The images he shows would be enough to shock and sicken anyone.  Of particular note are the very first image of a dead man, his eyes wide and staring right into camera; the shot of a human foot being burnt with phosphorous; and the various images of dead bodies being bulldozed like broken concrete.  Resnais's approach to the film, his style, accents the atrocities in meaningful, though not intrusive, ways.  The film, you could say, is sort of a flashback.  We open with some color photography of an isolated industrial setting, beautiful in its way.  The camera glides and shots dissolve into other shots.  It is all peaceful and serene.  We are then told through a restrained Narrator that this was the site of a concentration camp.  While the scenery hasn’t changed, our own feelings of such a place turn the shots ugly; much like the nature of a person changes the image of them in our minds.  We then see the past, the Holocaust; black and white stills and archival footage mostly shot by the Nazis for unmade propaganda films.  It’s sort of like the inverse of The Wizard of Oz, except the “fantasy,” the Holocaust footage, is real.  The beauty of the present—the color photography with its dreamlike maneuvering through space, seems to be of another time and place.  What Resnais is saying, the way I interpret it, is that man is a cruel animal capable of committing these acts, and that we should always be conscious of the fact.

I don’t remember if I had this reaction while watching the film on DVD by myself, but when I watched Night and Fog on the big screen with an audience, I couldn’t help myself but I had to shield my eyes from the final shots of the Holocaust footage: a montage of truly horrible images—mountains made of human hair for example.  I could not take it.  I think the reason is this: I felt responsible—not “I” as an individual but as a human being.  Inaction leads to the inevitable.  No other film has affected me in the same way as Night and Fog.  With this film, I realized how effective documentaries can be and it toppled for me this bigoted notion that they pale in comparison to narrative films.  I concede that documentaries have the ability to move audiences in ways dramatic pictures never can, perhaps because fiction hasn’t really happened.  Night and Fog is our history.  It is not just a superb example of modern art, this shit (there is no more appropriate word) actually happened.

I can’t truly say I love this film or even enjoy it.  I can’t understand how someone can enjoy it the same way you can a Hitchcock thriller or even a Bergman chamber drama.  I appreciate the film as a powerful indictment of the Holocaust, an unforgettable and haunting event in world history, and as a work of art.  Whenever I watch it, I’m spellbound by the visuals and the ideas, the beauty and the horror.  Alain Resnais was never coupled into the French New Wave.  Like the great Agnes Varda, he began making films a decade before but he contributed some of the defining New Wave films.  Night and Fog, made in 1955, is a perfect example of what a New Wave picture would mean: a nonconformist, idiosyncratic, adult masterpiece that withstands the test of time in that, as Resnais suggests, its topic is timeless.

Night and Fog (1955)

(a.k.a. Nuit et brouillard)

Director: Alain Resnais

Writer: Jean Cayrol, Chris Marker (Script Editor)

Stars: Michel Bouquet (Narrator)

France

In French

Runtime: 32 minutes

To purchase Night and Fog on DVD from The Criterion Collection, visit Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Night-Fog-Collection-Michel-Bouquet/dp/B000093NQZ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300565425&sr=8-1

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048434/