Alphaville (1965, Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution)

Alphaville starts out well enough; the main character Lemmy Caution checks into a hotel in Alphaville and the concierge takes off her clothes and offers to sleep with him in a monotone voice.  It seemed like an interesting look at a future torn apart by electronics, machinery, money, and war, the usual themes in Jean-Luc Godard’s work (at least those are the ones I can pick up on).  But Godard is not a simple filmmaker, he cannot tell a film simply.  He adds all these irreverent, pretentious moments, often in fumbled cutaways; he distorts his soundtrack, at one point cutting out during the dialogue, complete silence for several seconds, and then returns with a voiceover.  This is not for me.  Long before the end of the film I was lost; I don’t want to make myself seem stupid.  I simply couldn’t follow moment to moment.  The dialogue, stilted and detached, a Godard trademark, did not make sense sentence to sentence, and often word to word.

I’ve had a strange relationship with Godard’s films.  Breathless was the first I saw and it bored me.  My next few Godard films fared no better and I was convinced he was a dated, overrated filmmaker.  Now having seen the scope of his work I no longer hold the same belief and have come to this conclusion: Jean-Luc Godard was the most experimental French New Wave director and always ran the risk of failing.  He experimented with structure, genre, casting, and was interested in movie art rather than entertainment, though his successful pictures are extremely enjoyable.  50 years after Breathless, Godard is still revered as one of history’s most important auteurs, even if in his more recent years the director has struggled to make an engaging film.  The first period of his career, Breathless through Weekend, was a highly productive time, and where all of his masterpieces reside.  Alphaville simply isn’t one of them.

As far as I could understand, Alphaville is a galaxy or a planet in a galaxy that is controlled by Alpha 60, a supercomputer that has put an end to individual thought and freedom, imagination, art, and religion.  The people who live there have numerical tattoos, probably for no other reason than the Nazis did that to their victims and Godard is drawing the parallel there.  Every cliché one can think of is present in the film, including the love conquers all ending that seems to me to be the only moment of achieved satire.  Alpha 60’s computerized voiceover is omnipresent in the film; it pops up over conversations, to provide exposition, or to offer aloof insights into humanity as Godard sees it.  In fact, when once his films may have had social relevance, his work has not aged well.  Take for example his section of the anthology film Love and Anger, where two sets of characters have long dialogues that cut back and forth between couples to the point where their personalities mix and they become one another.  That film is so obviously a criticism on the Vietnam War, and when watching Alphaville I could not help think of that film.  I don’t know what Godard is attacking here though.  He takes jabs at America and capitalism which personally I found offensive because they are antiquated and biased.

Behind it all though, I can’t help but think that Godard is laughing at all his critics, offering a simple ‘fuck you; I suckered you into my world’.  He may have succeeded but I would have liked a better film to manipulate me this way.

The simple fact is that Godard never learned how to make movies.  He may have had great ambition and indeed made a few masterpieces (Vivre sa vie and Contempt), but his work is uneven.  Godard seems too to have developed an ego, understandable since his debut feature is often considered one of the three most influential films in cinema history along with Birth of a Nation and Citizen Kane.  He had the clout to make his films in this way because no matter what, movie-going snobs of the 60s would rush to his films simply to brag that they’ve seen them.

Despite the fact that I did not for an instant enjoy this film, the fact is I hated nearly every minute of it, I could not help notice how many science-fiction films it did influence.  Kubrick’s 2001 is the most obvious with Hal undoubtedly taking a cue from Alpha 60.  Alphaville even mentions that Alpha 60 is the continuation of corporations like IBM, and every letter in “Hal” is just one removed from that real life company.  It is reminiscent of Blade Runner in its noir elements including a detective-like figure trying to kill a robot, or in this case the inventor of one.  Plus all the citizens of Alphaville come off as robots; something I consciously thought was going to be revealed at the climax.  Even François Truffaut’s Fahrenheit 451 was influenced by Aplhaville in its similarly bleak future with disconnected humans who resort to bizarre physical moments in public.  Godard in turn must have been influenced by other films; to me he seems to have been influenced by Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.  Lang co-starred in Contempt and while Metropolis thematically, artistically, and ambitiously shares nothing with Godard’s sci-fi flick, this parallel seems appropriate.

There were elements I enjoyed in the movie.  First was the music, which kicks in right away in homage to Hollywood noirs.  I always enjoy Anna Karina who is beautiful and unfortunately wasted in this lengthy role.  She has been much better elsewhere.  Perhaps with a better leading man than Eddie Constantine, who fumbles through the infrequent action scenes, the film might have come across as more authentic.  I can’t help think of Belmondo who played a similar character in Breathless and was innocently sexy and charismatic.  The lack of imposing hero is a noir staple so I may be overly critical here.  I just didn’t like this movie.

Alphaville (1965)

(a.k.a. Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution)

Director: Jean-Luc Godard

Writers: Jean-Luc Godard

Stars: Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina and Akim Tamiroff

France

In French

Runtime: 99 minutes

IMDB link:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058898/

Purchase Alphaville on Criterion DVD at Amazon, or stream now via Amazon Instant Video, and check out books on the film and Jean-Luc Godard in the links below:

Village of the Damned, The (1960)

With intelligence, articulation, a lot of faith in the viewer’s suspension of disbelief and with great regard for our enjoyment, Hollywood at one time made terrific horror films.  Monster pictures in the 30s, suspenseful noirs in the 40s, and science fiction in the 50s; the industry has a great tradition that has given way to mindless violence and gore.  What is easiest and above all cheapest now passes for entertainment.  The Village of the Damned is the kind of film that Hollywood has forgotten.

For five hours, the quaint English community of Midwich inexplicably falls asleep.  Months later, the Midwich women all give birth to normal looking blonde children with striking eyes.  They develop much faster than normal children, and their stare causes strange reactions from adults.  George Sanders plays Gordon Zellaby, father of one of these children.  He is one of the first to link the blackout to the great amount of pregnancies, some of them apparently unexplainable, and Gordon develops a great scientific interest in these children.  They seem to be able to read people’s thoughts and have a great instinct for survival.  Before long, they alienate the townsfolk, and when the efforts of their survival result in death, the town is desperate to take action but powerless of affect it.

What struck me immediately was the mood the film creates.  Due credit to director Wolf Rilla: without a note of music, we see the people of Midwich collapse.  The fluid camera acts as our guide, and what is created is a sad visual poem.  Then the clock strikes, and continues to strike throughout the main titles. 

There is such a sense of dread and uncertainty as to the nature of these children, probably because the material is so closely related to real life.  Women could probably give a fairer viewpoint, but the idea of being impregnated with another thing’s child is very creepy.  It speaks to issues like rape or in vitro fertilization.  In fact the two issues are combined.  Is it possible to love this foreign child inside of you?  I would very much like to hear some responses to this scenario.  I don’t have one; it’s not that I can’t sympathize with being pregnant.  I just don’t know how I would react if there was the possibility that the life growing inside of me wasn’t my own.  Maybe no one can.  We’ve heard of mistakes with in vitro where the wrong sperm is inserted.  I find it odd that the film can look ahead and consider topical contemporary issues.  But that, in a more general sense, is the function of science fiction.  It isn’t spaceships shooting at each other.  The genre is a parallel of everyday life.

The writing is in a superb Hollywood tradition.  Tight story construction never allows the material to sag.  The dialogue is at a high level of intelligence, and the characters pause and consider their options.  No one is eager to make the wrong choice, and this thoughtfulness is refreshing in a sci-fi horror flick.  This is not to say that the film is heavy and depressing.  It’s very enjoyable.  It is suspenseful and campy and really has an unsettling effect.  The one fantastic element is introduced into an environment similar to our own.  Scientists and military officials gather to hear all possibilities of the phenomenon.  The film never makes it exactly clear what has happened or who or what these children are.  One scientist suggests evolution; Sanders’ character believes it is the transference of energy, possibly from outer space.  Any explanation would be ludicrous but the characters know that; they know there is no accounting for the sleeping state the village found itself in.  The film realizes that the unknown is scariest.

To contrast horror of the past and present, in the film the children manipulate a man into shooting himself in the face with a shotgun.  We’ve, for some abnormal reason, seen many shotguns to the face in movies.  In a modern film, the impact of the scene would rely on seeing the buckshot disintegrate the man’s face.  Such a visual can only repulse, and any talentless hack can nauseate an audience.  In The Village of the Damned the mood of the film heightens the tension; cross-cutting between the bystanders’ horrified faces and the threatening eyes of the children, with the objective shots of the man with the shotgun guiding the narrative.  He slowly places the gun under his chin, and we see his finger find the trigger.  It is pulled.  We see only the cold faces of the children, and then the human reaction.  It brings a true feeling of sadness and loss that further contributes to the atmosphere of the film.

George Sanders is one of the great character actors.  He is probably best remembered for his Oscar winning role in All About Eve, but lovers of classic films will recognize him in everything from Hitchcock’s Rebecca to Hangover Square.  I found reviewing his credits on the Internet Movie Database immensely enjoyable.  He’s like an old friend to us movie buffs, always willing to give his best and steal the show.  His role in Rebecca is immortal proof of that.  Here he is the lead.  I’m often impressed with so called supporting actors who land a leading role.  Their personality can carry a film, but, as is the case with The Village of the Damned, so much of what was special from a Sanders performance is missing.  He has to play the straight man guiding us through the picture, and his asides and wit are rushed here if they are present at all.  I have nothing to complain about though.  I love looking at George Sanders on the screen but he has had meatier roles in other films.  This speaks more to the way films used to be written than to Sander’s talents.  Leading roles today take on too much baggage, probably in proportion to the salary of the star.  The more money they get the longer they stay on screen—‘let’s get our money’s worth’ is most likely the idea.  Writers could before create wonderful parts to anchor the leads, and this allowed actors to create a niche to showcase their work.

The one complaint I have is a trend popular in many low-budget film and TV work of the era.  When a character is thinking something and the tension of the scene depends on this thought, and even though the audience has been told what the character has to remember, instead of relying on the visual of the actor struggling, a voiceover is tacked on to remind us.  I find this distracts from the drama.  We’re intelligent enough to recall the character’s thought from the previous scene.  In the film’s defense, if this is the only problem I could find then the film is a terrific success.

And so it is.  Every now and then (mostly now) I crave a great little horror film.  We have so few that actually work.  The Village of the Damned is a refreshingly taut and fun film.  Great science fiction, rivaling The Twilight Zone, and terrific storytelling create an aura of inescapable fear for a small town with everything to lose.

Village of the Damned, The (1960)

Director: Wolf Rilla

Writer: Stirling Silliphant

Stars: George Sanders, Barbara Shelley and Martin Stephens

UK / USA

In English

Runtime: 77 minutes

The Village of the Damned is available on a double feature DVD.  Visit Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Village-Damned-Children-George-Sanders/dp/B00027JYMG

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054443/

Kaboom (2010)

I am surprised at my reaction to the sci-fi comedy Kaboom.  The genre, the style, the personalities, the drugs, the frivolous sexual exploits; typically a film like this would leave me angry for wasting 80 minutes of my life but I’ve seen it twice now and it is fun.  Odd-ball nuts but a lot of fun.  It’s almost a waste to get into the plot.  It’s not brilliantly structured and part of me believes it’s a satirical piece of filmmaking. It’s too good to only be poorly written.

Smith is an 18 year old college freshman attracted to his hot straight roommate named Thor.  Smith’s best friend is Stella, and on the side Smith has terrific sex with a quirky girl named London.  All innocent fun… except for a reoccurring dream Smith has in which all the people he loves in life plus two girls he doesn’t even know invite him down a white corridor and through a door.  In life he meets one of the unknown girls and witnesses her death... but he was high at the time and doesn’t know what is real.  As his dream intensifies we arbitrarily gain new pieces of info in an effort to develop a nuclear holocaust plot that has deep roots in Smith’s past.  This is independent filmmaking at its most creative.  It crosses many genres and uses cheeky special effects simply to entertain its audience.  There’s nothing more to it.  This genre-hopping, eye-bugging exercise works exceptionally well because it focuses more on its characters’ sexual and carefree routines rather than the overarching story.  The filmmakers knew that character is where the fun is.

Kaboom is shot in vibrant color, so refreshingly stylish, and the human stereotypes are gleefully on display.  Smith is a cute twink who rebels against sexual labels.  He is “undeclared”, but his fashion sense is part emo and part young gay sheik so we know which team he plays for.  Thor, the straight guy, is a bronzed surfer who spouts out “dude” more than a bad 90s stereotype.  Satires are written with a high level of intelligence and know not to insult the stereotypes but really to expose them as falsehoods.  Case in point—Smith becomes the hero in an off-beat action flick where at best in standard Hollywood fare he would be the brunt of jokes.  Then there’s Stella, Smith’s pal, played by Haley Bennett.  I want to mention her by name because she is terrific.  Fresh, original, like no other movie lesbian I’ve seen in a teen comedy.  She has a quick delivery and an insightful pessimistic outlook with some great, funny dialogue.  The whole cast is good but Bennett is exceptional.  It’s the Thor’s of the film, the cool kids in high school who really can’t fit in outside their comfort zone, who get the ridicule.  Thor and his best friend Rex are portrayed as sexually unsophisticated misfits among the hip, multi-sexual experimentation.  This too may be a stereotype but they are redeemed because the film exists in a world where sexuality isn’t a weapon.  Thor is very friendly with Smith and is comfortable enough with him to try to perform auto fellatio in his presence.  I know how it sounds, but you have to see the movie.

However under all this is some truly frightening imagery, namely the black figures with animal heads who stalk Smith.  I had a very powerful reaction to seeing them, perhaps because they triggered a memory I had long forgotten.  At night as a kid, I would play a game with myself.  I would hide under the covers and imagine that there were dozens of people standing on the street outside my window.  I didn’t know who they were or why, but they were there.  Seeing these creatures in Kaboom I was reminded of how scared my game made me, and that fear heightened the impact of these scenes.  I think without this memory the images retain something of their ability to frighten.  Whether it was a direct influence, I think back to Kubrick’s The Shinning.  One of the most unsettling images in the entire film was a shot of a person in an animal costume performing oral sex on an ordinary-dressed man.  Perhaps it is a subconscious fear of bestiality that makes such images potent or perhaps this whole topic says more about me than Kaboom.

It may just be that I am the right audience for this film.  Older people will be less indulgent because the film’s sensibilities are aimed at my generation (maybe even a generation younger).  People who don’t believe in pansexuality might find the whole film absurd.  Which brings me to a contemporary movie trend I saw further exploited in Kaboom.  A lot of films by gay or questioning filmmakers have to detail the Kinsey scale.  Kinsey did his research in the 1940’s and though I’m sure it was accurate, it might be time for his surveys and research to be updated.  Nevertheless, I just find this revival of Kinsey interesting.  Whatever, I liked the movie.  Enough said.

Kaboom (2010)

Director: Gregg Araki

Writer: Gregg Araki

Stars: Haley Bennett, Thomas Dekker, Chris Zylka and Juno Temple

USA

In English

Runtime: 86 minutes

Kaboom will be released on DVD from IFC Films this May.  Pre-order now at Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004OBQDCK/ref=s9_simh_gw_p74_d0_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=06M0P0WXCM8SAEHEMJRP&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846

If you prefer Blu-ray, visit Amazon (France):

http://www.amazon.fr/Kaboom-Blu-ray-Thomas-Dekkler/dp/B004FK2MRA/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1300685627&sr=1-2

(beware the Blu-ray is Region B locked and French language subtitles are forced by the player!)

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1523483/

Metropolis: The Morodor Version (1927 / 1984)

The “Moroder” version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, created in 1984, has become something of an affectionate curiosity.  Debates over its existence have apparently raged among film buffs, many of whom find the alterations in this version something akin to blasphemy, though the film has had its champions.  Roger Ebert gave it 4 stars, insisting he simply ignored the soundtrack and focused in on Lang’s overpowering imagery. An online push for its DVD and Blu-ray release, and the ignorance against these voices, has lead one enterprising individual to “recreate” the Moroder version by colorizing the best available material (probably using the 2002 restoration released on DVD by Kino International in the US and Eureka in the UK) and restoring and adding Moroder’s 80s pop soundtrack.

The version I viewed was either a VHS or Laserdisc port to DVD with overblown contrast and surprisingly vibrant sound (probably taken from Laserdisc) which I had to download…illegally.  This was my sixth overall viewing of Metropolis, having seen the 2002 restoration twice, the complete 2010 restoration, the 2002 with audio commentary, and then again the 2010, followed now by the Moroder version.  Giorgio Moroder, a popular producer of pop / rock movie soundtracks, really owns this version.  The music aside, which actually works very well with the film, this 82 minute version excises most of the title cards, opts for subtitles (an interesting decision), alters Lang’s editing far beyond the missing footage did and recreates shots and adds special effects.  Oh yeah, and the film is now in color.  Not really, though that proclamation opens the film.  Moroder uses color tints, popular in Weimar-era German films.  Based on all the definitive restorations of silent Fritz Lang films done by the F.W. Murnau Foundation (which restores the color tints when applicable) none of Lang’s films had tinting because in his lifetime Lang voiced his opinion against them.

The story in the Moroder version is basically the same.  In a futuristic city (dated in only this film version as 2026) the workers live underground and provide power for the rich who live in Joh Frederson’s Metropolis.  Ferder, his privileged son, falls in love with Maria, a champion of workers’ rights, and in his pursuit of her discovers the deplorable conditions the workers face.  So he sets about leveling the balance among the rich and poor.  Meanwhile, the genius inventor Rotwang has invented the Machine Man as a substitute for his dead love, and Joh Frederson makes Rotwang give the robot Maria’s likeness so that she may mislead the workers and cause their destruction.  Often with silent movies symbolism and metaphor count much more than subtly which I guess is harder to obtain with pure images.  The 2002 restoration of Metropolis, which was missing 25 minutes of footage, had title cards explaining the plot development of the missing scenes, and thus the primitive narrative could have before been blamed on the film’s lack of completeness.  A lot of the story is pure pulp, something out of a hackneyed detective novel.  This kind of material seems to always be present in Lang’s silent films, and many put the blame on Thea von Harbou, Lang’s wife and prolific writer in the pre-National Socialist era and later a devoted Nazi.  While von Harbou’s tastes may have been more closely related to the crime story or newspaper novel, this simplicity in storytelling is the narrative tradition of German Expressionism, arguably the most influential movement in film history.  Ceaser, the somnambulist villain in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, is controlled by the title character for purely superficial reasons.  That is to say, everything Caligari had Ceaser do the Doctor could have done himself, only Ceaser’s black leotard figure was more intriguing.  In Nosferatu, the complexity of structure found in Bram Stoker’s Dracula is replaced with more symbolic imagery which could refine in mere seconds a single idea, even if by today’s standards these are dated.  But Lang and von Harbou revel in melodrama, science fiction, machinery, noir, and spy elements, and rip-roaring adventure, and they make Metropolis work.  Balance is achieved in this genre defying epic.

The widely held belief is that the Moroder version is filled with wall to wall 80s rock songs by artists like Bonnie Tyler and Adam Ant.  That is only partly true.  Moroder uses excerpts of these songs to accent his original score which is quite terrific and even aids in the storytelling.  I think we all owe a debt of gratitude to Moroder for being one of the first to attempt to recreate Lang’s original cut of the film and for filling in the missing footage with title cards explaining the important story developments in the missing scenes.  The restoration here is fantastic.  The image quality is just about as good as the 2002 digital restoration, though I cannot say for certain if Moroder’s version was the first to try and preserve this magnificent film.  The color tints annoyed me a little because Lang did not approve them.  Color is a dominating visual factor and highly moving in its own right.  To a certain extent, the tints manipulated the story telling of Metropolis.  But in viewing this version this is something we must come to terms with.  The color tints are unique, and the recreation of the missing sections of film goes so far as rebuilding and photographing an original statue of Hel which Rotwang keeps in his laboratory.

Some of the story is also excised.  The character of 11811 goes unused altogether; there is no mention of his run-ins with the Thin Man who retains only his opening and closing scenes.  Until the 2010 restoration these scenes were all that existed of that performance, but at least the 2002 restoration did mention these episodes in title cards.  But Moroder’s version does tell a complete story, even if Rotwang’s motivations are completely changed.  He becomes even more like Dr. Frankenstein: having created the monster, he can no longer control it.  The Machine Man, disguised as Maria, is no longer following orders, and as a consolation Rotwang chooses to keep the real Maria to himself.  Using this story or Lang and Thea von Harbou’s version provides the same simple storytelling, so this didn’t bother me.

Another addition to the soundtrack is sound effects, used similarly to today’s folly effects; large crowd scenes are given cheers, footsteps and other incidental sounds, and many of the “bangs” or percussive movements have accompanying effects.  This irked me.

I had the privilege of being one of the first New Englanders to see the most complete version of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis.  The Alloy Orchestra, specializing in silent film scores, did a live performance of an original score first written as an alternate soundtrack to the Moroder version.  I didn’t like The Alloy Orchestra score because they built sound effects into their music.  We are watching a silent movie.  Let the music take over.  Gottfried Huppertz’s original 1927 score, created for the Berlin premiere, is one of the best movie scores ever written.  He did not suggest sounds but provided an emotional and epic soundscape for Lang’s opus.  But upon reflection, one viewing of a silent movie can differ from another.  Different musical scores add their own, and now, months after hearing The Alloy Orchestra score, I miss their music and regret that Kino did not include it in their Blu-ray release of the 2010 restoration.  I can say the same about the Moroder version.  I felt a fondness for this film as I watched it.  Maybe the knowledge of the complete version of the film existing softened my reaction to this film.

There are many Metropolises and each one adds something to the experience, lengthening its reputation for the next generation, and since the 1980s, we have been making our way to the complete version of the film.  If you can, see the Moroder version.  Moroder was not ruining a classic film, simply presenting another version of Fritz Lang’s dizzying dystopia.

Metropolis (1927)

(Metropolis: The Morodor Version (1984) )

Director: Fritz Lang

Writer: Thea von Harbou

Stars: Brigitte Helm, Alfred Abel, and Gustav Frohlich

Germany

Silent with English subtitles and intertitles

Runtime: 82 minutes

Unfortunately Giorgio Moroder's version of Metropolis has not been released on any digital format.  Used VHS copies might be available via Ebay or Amazon's marketplace.  Online sites may be the best way to view Morodor's version.

IMDB link:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017136/