Movies have been made about every conceivable subject and in every conceivable style - love, hate, war, peace, life, death, music and art, horticulture and agriculture, straight narrative, flashback, experimental, the works. But I'll give you three movies that (in my not-so-humble opinion) are absolutely unique in terms of the subject matter they address.
1. The Hustler. There are all kinds of movies about winning and losing, the agony of victory and the ecstasy of defeat, in just about every kind of sporting activity. But The Hustler is the only movie I know about the actual process of winning, i.e., of gaining and keeping the mindset necessary to master the art of winning. Let me apologize in advance for something - a large part of that art consists of alterations in attitude and self-awareness subtle to the point of being subliminal, and for that reason difficult to describe in concrete language. So if some of what follows sounds a little ersatz and flat, bear with me.
Early in the movie, Fast Eddy loses, to Fats at pool and to others in the larger aspects of life, because he literally doesn't know how to win. He has an appreciation of his own enormous talent, but none at all of what it is he really wants or how to obtain it. The theme of the picture is established with some brilliance in the prologue, in which - while en route to the big meeting with Fats - Eddie executes an ordinary hustle with a panache that is absolutely unnecessary and even dangerous. The object of the exercise should be to leave the suckers in ignorance of the fact that they've been hustled. Eddie doesn't understand that. He delights in showing off his brilliance in a way that actually endangers the real object of the game. That's the point of departure for the plot.
In the first big meeting with Fats, Eddie easily establishes himself as the superior player. But he is too callow and immature to set the limits, i.e., he knows how to play the game, but doesn't understand the constraints of the game itself. 'The game isn't over until Fats SAYS it is!' he declares, ridiculously - and of course Fats will not say any such thing until he can claim victory. (A note to all gamblers and particularly poker players - if you don't quit at some point when you're ahead, the only possible way to quit is when you're behind. An inarguable, gruesome point of common sense and mathematical fact.)
The basic movement of the picture is the story of Eddie acquiring (at significant personal cost) the perspective and maturity, the mindset, necessary to prevail. The second (and final) encounter with Fats is deliberately anti-climactic and perfunctory - Eddie knows now who he is, what he intends to prove (much more than superior skill at rotation pool), and - above all - what the limit of the game actually is, what winning actually means. He's learned how to win, and become a mensch in the bargain. The Hustler thus stands as a unique picture. (By the way, I disliked the sequel made some 25 years later, 'The Color of Money', as much as I liked the first. There is no way that the Eddie Felson who emerges at the end of The Hustler emerges as the Eddie Felson of the sequel. No way.)
2. All That Jazz. Life and death are of course the staple of all drama, maybe even a universal theme, the ultimate subject of all. But All That Jazz is the only one I know that is actually about the process of dying. The most vivid scenes in the picture, the musical numbers set in the hospital and themed around open-heart surgery, are the ones that stay with the audience, and rightly so. But, as with The Hustler, the theme is consistent throughout. Thus, the first dialog in the movie is a colloquy between the hero (Joe Gideon, the alter ego of the director, Bob Fosse) and a lovely Lady in White who turns out to be Death herself. The picture goes on from there.
I could discuss any number points of interest that illustrate the point, but I'll stick to just one. Intercut throughout the movie are scenes of Gideon doing an endless edit of a comedian doing a bit based on the discussions of Elizabeth Kubler-Ross on the various psychological stages of dying. (The picture-within-a-picture is entitled 'The Comedian', obviously referencing - in this autobiographical movie - Fosse's picture 'Lenny'.) The subplot is interesting in its own right, but it simultaneously provides an ongoing rumination about the death process, becoming more acute and focused as the edits become sharper and better. They form a counterpoint for the increasing debilitation of the hero. His eyes become redder, his cough becomes heavier, his discussions with the Lady in White become more intimate. All That Jazz may be the most thanatophiliac movie ever made.
The star scenes, the ones that every one remembers, are the ones in the last third of the movie, when Gideon is hospitalized. It is a near-certainty that no one else will ever stage a musical number based on open heart surgery. The most unsettling scene, in my opinion, is the one in which Gideon, having escaped from his hospital room, comes across an elderly woman, bedridden and moribund, and impulsively mounts the bed and gives her an impassionate soul kiss. That shook me up immensely the first time I saw it. It is a truism, of course that the inevitable decline of the body is matched by a decline in passion, but that was the first time I saw the fact starkly dramatized. It occurred to me, then and now, that maybe the worst part of aging might be the frustration of remaining passionate while the flesh weakens and then deserts. Do not go gentle into that good night, Dylan Thomas advised. Maybe that's the exact ungentleness he meant. If so, like a lot of good advice, there's a lot more edginess in it than you'd think at first.
The movie ends with the hero metaphorically in the arms of the Lady in White, and corporeally in a body bag. The picture has moved vector-like towards that conclusion from its very first frame to the last syllable of its recorded time. There are a lot of movies that feature death as a theme or event, but All That Jazz is the only one I know that is about dying.
3. Lust, Caution. I have a number of Chinese friends and acquaintances. To a man and woman, they admire Ang Lee and his accomplishments as a filmmaker. To a man and woman, they all agreed that Ang Lee had lost his mind with the movie Lust, Caution. The reason is the notorious bedroom scenes, which go to verge of hard core porn and maybe beyond.
The critics were not as shocked as my friends, but many had problems with this picture. The reason, stated in more than one review, was the coldness and distance of the hero and heroine. Talk about missing the point! There are ten zillion movies about love, in all its varieties, but Lust, Caution is the only one I know that's about lust. The picture is absolutely faithful to its title.
The famous scenes are not at all erotic, but actually rather off-putting. They are edgy, ugly, angry encounters, laced with violence and raw hatred. The couple at the center are physically attracted to each other, no question - but they are also locked into a relationship based on mutual contempt and self-loathing. A nearly murderous intensity runs throughout everything they do. This is passion, to be sure, but it is not love - the opposite, in fact, lust in action, as the poet would say.
If the movie was only concerned with sexual combustibility, and the hero and heroine matchstick people, it would not be worth writing about. But that's not the case. Both hero and heroine are complex, intelligent individuals, who deserve better - it's the war, the occupation, and the compulsion of larger moral duties that ensnare them. Although their relationship is lust-based, it is as complicated and multi-dimensional as any love story. The picture is long, and plot driven - a story of wartime intrigue and spy melodrama. The story moves slowy, logically,and consistently toward the point of departure at which this sort of destructive affair is possible for person who might have deserved better.
The ending of this movie is extraordinary. The climax turns on the first unambiguously loving act done by either character, which act leads to disaster for both. The action is emotionally and dramatically appropriate, but why the character does what is done is next to impossible to articulate in any but the largest terms. (My apologies for being so vague, but this is essential plot stuff.) Events follow quickly thereafter, leading to one of the most complex denouements in all film, in terms of the variety of emotions it evokes. It's next to impossible to describe in full - there is literally too much to say.
If I haven't been clear, let me be so now. Lust, Caution is a masterpiece, likely the best picture Ang Lee has ever made (which is really saying something), and one of the greatest in the canon. (While in this mode of unrestrained enthusiasm, let me say that the score by Alexandre Desplat is absolutely superb, haunting and completely appropriate.) That said, it does have a flaw. Those famous notorious scenes are somewhat miscalculated by the genius director. They go on much too long and in too much detail. They are so extremely explicit, so far beyond the normal pale, that they distort the larger movement of the picture. The first time I saw the movie, I was frankly rattled, and a little embarrassed to be viewing this stuff in mixed company. I watched the rest of the movie waiting for another shoe to drop, and for that reason missed a lot of nuance. But I had a sense there was more, much more to it, and went back to it when it came out on blu-ray. Once inured to the shock scenes, I discovered the masterpiece I have described here.
It would be a shame if the explicit scenes were too offputting, because Lust, Caution is actually a relationship movie, very much the work of the director of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman, Sense and Sensibility, and Brokeback Mountain. There are very few persons of romantic implication, particularly women, who would not be touched and moved by this story.
Frank: interesting and very personal choice of movies. I have seen several films by Ang Lee, but not Lust/Caution: read "The Hustler," but not seen the film; and seen "All That Jazz" many years ago (I own the DVD, but haven't watched it in five years).
When you write "All That Jazz may be the most thanatophilic movie ever made" there's an implicit alignment with Gideon's romantic fantasy of an embrace with the Angel of Death - a fantasy that's, of course, brutally shattered by the film's very last image.
This reminds me of two films directed by Mike Nichols - "The Graduate" and "Working Girl." Ben and Elaine's ecstatic sprint for the bus as they flee the church is where many directors would have ended the movie - not on the long held close up on the couples' faces as the ramifications of their actions begin to sink in. In "Working Girl," Nichols used a long zoom back from Melanie Griffiths' triumphant young junior executive office to show that, after all that successful striving, she'd exchanged one dronehood for another.
I would be surprised if "All That Jazz" would be made by a studio today.
Posted by: Andrew | November 07, 2009 at 03:23 PM