Directed by Joel (and Ethan) Coen
Written by Ethan and Joel Coen
Starring Billy Bob Thornton, Frances McDormand, Scarlett Johannson, James Gandolfini, Tony Shalhoub, Jon Polito
The Man Who Wasn’t There is a great-looking curiosity piece. The same could probably be said about most of the Coens’ movies. I’m a fan of them, as are most film people I know. They’ve put their stamp on a lot of different genres and created a few truly unique movies. What other movie is like O Brother Where Art Thou, or The Hudsucker Proxy?
This time around the genre is film noir. Working with their regular cinematographer Roger Deakins, they nail the look. That’s a given. There’s a reason Deakins is one of the best-known people of his profession. The basic elements of the plot fit in with the genre as well. There is betrayal and murder. The protagonist, Ed Crane the barber, is less than heroic. He narrates his story with unflinching cynicism.
But the feel of the movie is different from classic noir. Maybe it’s über noir. The movie just oozes hopelessness. It’s not without the Coens’ comic touches, but they aren’t enough to let any sunshine in to this bleak tale. Scarlett Johansson’s Birdy is the brightest spot, but even her character isn’t immune to the effects of the general malaise.
A decade before, the Coens made Miller’s Crossing, a film that was as good a gangster picture as it was a sendup of the genre, depending on how seriously you feel like taking it. It is one of many high points in their careers. Of that film’s protagonist, Tom Reagan, it is said that he doesn’t hate anyone -- or like anyone. That statement can be applied and amplified to Ed Crane. To say he “isn’t there” is fair enough. His life seems to have happened around him, without any initiative on his part. When he makes the decision to go into business with Jon Polito’s dry cleaning entrepreneur, his actions are motivated out of spite for his own wife. It makes him impossible to sympathize with, even if he had his own reasons for doing what he did.
The second half is a little easier to take. Events of the first section wrap up sooner than expected, and better for our protagonist than he deserves. Ed gravitates toward the light he sees in Birdy’s piano playing out of misplaced affection, and her presence is as much a relief for the audience as it is for him. But eventually his past comes back to haunt him, even if the specifics are a little off, and the story ends as it must.
I don’t know what kind of business the film did or how it was received critically, but I suspect history will be kind to the movie. Despite the detachment between protagonist and audience, it has to be said the movie is immaculately made. Writing, performances, direction, cinematography, and music all work together to create an experience that is cinematic in the best sense of the word.
And now the movie’s over and I’m bummed. That’s why I haven’t watched it in forever until now.
Interesting Facts
-- After initial discussions with the Coens about taking on the role of Ed Crane, Billy Bob Thornton watched every episode of The Andy Griffith Show featuring Floyd the barber repeatedly in preparation for his performance. Then, upon reading the final script, he said “what the fuck did I do that for?”
-- The moving piano piece that Birdy plays at her recital is “Move It On Over” by Hank Williams.
-- There is an anachronism toward the end of the film when Ed sees the UFO. The movie takes place in 1949, but the spaceship he sees is clearly a 1957 model. The dual exhaust and chrome highlights give it away.
Directed by Akira Kurosawa
Written by Akira Kurosawa, Tsuneo Tomita (novel)
Starring Susumu Fujita, Takashi Shimura, Ryunosuke Tsukigata
Only my third movie into this thing and Ziggy Jr. picks my first Kurosawa. And a couple of Kurosawa’s earliest movies as a director at that. Not Seven Samurai or Throne of Blood or Yojimbo or Rashomon or Red Beard or Ikiru. Sanshiro Sugata aka Judo Saga. Since there are two parts and the movies are fairly short, I might as well cover them both.
Akira Kurosawa is my favorite director. His peak period is from 1950 to 1965, from Rashomon to Red Beard. He directed thirteen films during that span. All are emotionally gripping and technically terrific films. A small number of these films have notable flaws, but the majority of them are classics.
The Sanshiro Sugata films, released in 1943 and 1945, are Kurosawa’s first and third films as a director. It wasn’t until his seventh film, 1948’s Drunken Angel, that Kurosawa himself felt he was becoming the kind of director he wanted to be.
So far I’ve said nothing much about the movies I am supposed to be writing about. This is only my second time watching them, so I’m not overly familiar with either part. So far, I’m finding the first one compelling enough. The action scenes are awkwardly staged, something which Kurosawa would improve upon tremendously by the time he made Seven Samurai.
Thankfully the rest of the storytelling is solid. It’s a pretty straightforward hero’s journey, from a nobody new in town who goes through trials to become the champion who gets the girl. There’s a villain with a memorable look to him. And some of the scenes and little touches are lovely. It’s clear what Toho studios saw in the young Kurosawa.
It’s also worth noting that Takashi Shimura, veteran actor who would appear in twenty of Kurosawa’s thirty films, was there right from the start. Though it was Toshiro Mifune who would come along a few years later and dominate Kurosawa’s classic period, the always reliable Shimura was excellent in support and even better in his leading roles in Ikiru and Seven Samurai.
Susumu Fujita, the lead actor in both Sanshiro Sugata films, has an affable quality but lacks the fire of Kurosawa’s later leading men, Mifune and Tatsuya Nakadai. Because of this and the fact that the story is so well-worn, and also because Kurosawa’s style had not yet developed, the films don’t make as much impression today as they did upon their original release. The first part was a hit for Toho. The second part is not only the lesser film in terms of story and craftsmanship, but had the misfortune of being released at a time when Japan was pretty ravaged by the effects of World War II.
Sanshiro Sugata is a modest success as a great director’s first film. Its sequel lacks most of the original film’s charm, and frankly is a disappointing continuation. Ultimately the audience for both films is limited to Kurosawa completists.
Interesting Facts
-- Akira Kurosawa was considered to be the Japanese John Ford. He did have great respect for Ford’s films and learned a few things from him. But Kurosawa generally preferred to be known as the Japanese Rita Hayworth, for reasons that have never been made entirely clear.
-- Susumu Fujita, who appeared in several of Kurosawa’s early films, was largely absent during the director’s peak period. This was not because of any kind of creative fallout, but because Fujita led a secret Japanese task force to find and rescue Japanese P.O.W.’s who had been left on foreign soil after WWII. These heroic efforts gave him a reputation as the Japanese Rambo.
-- Takashi Shimura was the Japanese Buddy Holly. Go figure.
Starring Humphrey Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall
Well, I got a pretty good one to start things off. Was afraid the computer (hereafter known as Ziggy Jr.) would end up picking something obscure like Armageddon for my inaugural foray with this blog. Key Largo stars my favorite actor working with his favorite leading lady in one of their better films together. My order of preference for the Bogart-Bacall collaborations: The Big Sleep, Key Largo, To Have and Have Not, Dark Passage. All but the latter are indisputable classic Hollywood entertainments.
Key Largo is basically a reworking of The Petrified Forest (1936), which contained Bogart’s breakthrough performance in the role of villain Duke Mantee. Warner Bros.' original choice for that role had been Edward G. Robinson, who was already an established screen star thanks to his turn as Rico in 1931’s Little Caesar and subsequent gangster pictures. Robinson’s performance as Johnny Rocco in Key Largo gives us a good idea what he would have been like as Mantee. Bogart, as protagonist Frank McCloud, has a grittier edge than Forest’s hero, the proper gentleman actor Leslie Howard. In both films, the heroes and villains are confined together during a storm and drama ensues. It’s one of the great formulas that still works.
I don’t believe in giving star ratings nor letter or numerical grades. So I’m not going to do that. My opinion of Key Largo is: very good movie, with entertaining story and performances that hold up well. My one gripe is that Bacall is underutilized.
Randoms
-- Johnny Rocco is one of those gangsters who likes making tough speeches while someone nervously shaves him with a straight razor. Possibly inspired a similar scene with Robert de Niro’s Al Capone in The Untouchables (1987).
-- Bacall is pretty fearless for a hostage. Would you spit on the leader of a bunch of hoods holding guns? Luckily she had Bogart there to talk him down with one of his patented dizzyingly fast speeches. If that hadn’t worked, I’m sure Bogart still had the magical shoulder-chop KO in his bag of tricks.
-- Rocco’s gang has guys named Ziggy, Curly, and Toots. What are the odds of assembling a group of mooks with names like that?
-- “What’s worse, Curly? A dumbbell or a wiseguy?” Curly answers "wiseguy". Maybe in his line of work he’s right. Me, I can’t abide stupidity. I’d have told him to shoot the dumbbell.
-- “One Rocco more or less isn’t worth dying for.” Would that line be convincing with any actor other than Bogart delivering it?
-- Inclement weather = natural drama. Screenwriters take note.
-- Rocco makes his poor alcoholic floozy sing for a snootful, then refuses to give her a drink because “you were rotten”. What an asshole.
-- One minor drawback to this particular Bogart-Bacall film is their lack of flirtatious scenes together. Their chemistry is better displayed in The Big Sleep and To Have and Have Not.
-- This was the last of the five films featuring Bogart and Robinson together. In all the previous films, Robinson was the star and Bogart a supporting player. In Key Largo, both actors get top-billing. Robinson kind of steals the show though.
-- Key Largo was the second film starring Bogart and directed by John Huston released in 1948. The other was The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, containing what is possibly Bogart’s best performance.
-- So you ditched a dead body outside and a lawman stumbles over it. What to do? Blame it on the Indians! Now that’s thinking like a white man.
-- Bogart is pretty restrained right up until he kills everybody.
Interesting Facts
-- John Huston was not the original director attached to the project. Key Largo was intended to be a technicolor musical and would have been the debut feature for a very young Stanley Kubrick. Hostilities broke out between Kubrick and Bogart, who harbored a deep jealousy of the acclaim James Cagney had received for Yankee Doodle Dandy. Bogart insisted on doing his own singing and choreographing all his big dance numbers with Bacall and Robinson. This set the production back several weeks before Kubrick was sacked. Some of his original footage was discovered perfectly preserved in a crypt in Switzerland shortly after Kubrick’s death in 1999. The material remains unavailable to the general public but by all reports is really, truly awful.
-- The fact that Bacall makes less impact in Key Largo than in her other screen adventures with Bogart may have to do with her replacing Betty White at the last minute. White apparently screen-tested very well, but refused to sign a contract stating that she would not be allowed to film her scenes nude.
-- Edward G. Robinson, on the other hand, had enough clout to add a nudity clause into his own contract, as evidenced by his bathtub introduction scene. It was common practice for the bigger stars of the time to demand these vanity nude scenes the first time their characters appeared in a movie. Unfortunately all home video versions have been based on the cropped and censored prints from the late 50s to early 60s, and most of these nude introductions are forever lost to us.
