The Screengrab : jean-pierre melville

Screengrab Review: "The Limits of Control"

Nick Schager — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:30:00 GMT

Having already combined samurai and noir cinema in Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, Jim Jarmusch begins his latest, The Limits of Control, with none-too-subtle nods to Jean-Pierre Melville’s crime-saga masterpiece Le Samouraï. Shot with gliding, hallucinatory grace by Christopher Doyle, Jarmusch’s film fixates on the preternaturally stoic countenance of a nameless loner (Isaach De Bankolé) as he lies silently in bed (the day turning to night as his eyes remain open), practices his morning Tai Chi, gets a business assignment from two unidentified men in an airport terminal, and travels to Spain, where he follows a schedule of sitting at an outdoor café each day and ordering two espressos. The ritual is the thing for this mysterious agent, whose comportment suggests a criminal vocation but whose motivations remain doggedly opaque, obscurity which Jarmusch, working from his own script (which begins with a Rimbaud quote), amplifies by lacing his set-up with import-heavy declarations like “Everything is subjective” and “Reality is arbitrary.” The mood is Point Blank by way of Jarmusch’s own Dead Man, the action quickly taking on the guise of a dreamscape in which every action, every gesture, every utterance seems a telling, emblem-laced clue.

What begins as an intriguingly symbolic gangster-saga-turned-spiritual head-trip, however, quickly turns into a slab of inert pretentiousness. Jarmusch has always had a tremendous gift for blending genres and moods, for mixing off-the-cuff cool with piercing action and heady profundity. But with The Limits of Control, he almost completely loses the thread – or, rather, clings too firmly to his story’s lifeless atmosphere, refusing for an instant to modulate his one-note tone. With a torpor that’s supposed to imply weightiness, Jarmusch’s film follows De Bankolé’s protagonist from one Spanish locale to another, where he meets a kooky contact – Tilda Swinton in a blonde wig and tan cowboy outfit; John Hurt as a scruffy weirdo; Gael García Bernal’s anonymous nobody – and exchanges boxer-decorated matchbooks that conceal ciphered instructions about his next destination, as well as sleeps with (but does not bed) a nude beauty (Paz de la Huerta). Each pit stop is typified by recurring coded dialogue (“You don’t speak Spanish, do you?”) and bits of ruminative jibber-jabber (about old movies, or about the molecular structure of wood), all delivered with an expressionless solemnity that strives to posit the proceedings as a cerebral trip down the psychological rabbit hole, yet elicits mostly exasperated eye-rolling.

There’s little doubt that Jarmusch intends his saga to represent something profound. Unlike the aforementioned Point Blank or Le Samouraï, however, he neither makes his encompassing point remotely clear, nor attempts to couch his thematic arguments via an engaging, exciting genre vehicle. The Limits of Control plods along with a self-seriousness that borders on parody, far too convinced of its own grave philosophical significance to offer anything approaching a thrill or an alleviating moment of levity, much less a sly wink that would reposition the film as a self-referential riff on affected crime cinema. Do the overhead shots of De Bankolé’s two espressos speak to life’s symmetry? Or are they meant to evoke eyes, which in turn are the “windows to the soul”? And what of the fact that De Bankolé’s ultimate target is a businessman (Bill Murray) ensconced in a soundproof hillside office bunker who – signifier alert! – rests his toupee on top of a skull? Is he a Dick Cheney stand-in? Jarmusch’s oblique story provides no tantalizing hints, a situation that will surely lead some to tenaciously parse the underlying meaning of the director’s self-important rumination, but for most others, will simply test the limits of their patience.

The Best & Worst Get Rich Quick Schemes In Cinema History! (Part Six)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 22:30:00 GMT

LOCK, STOCK & TWO SMOKING BARRELS (1998) & SNATCH (2000)

The Guy Ritchie formula seems deceptively easy: mix several colorfully bemonikered, slang-slinging con men, lowlifes, and petty criminals with a couple of scary sociopaths, a handful of intersecting scams and a hundred thousand bullets and beat to a pulp. And yet, as deeply uneven films like Smoking Aces (and Ritchie’s own Revolver) have demonstrated, good-natured ultra-violence can be just as tricky to pull off as the doomed get-rich-quick schemes favored by the sub-genre’s hapless anti-heroes. First, there needs to be a good Maguffin, like the antique shotguns in Lock, Stock or Snatch’s 86-carat diamond. Next comes a solid rooting interest (like the indispensable Jason Statham) and a credibly scary criminal kingpin like P.H. Moriarty’s murderous pornographer “Hatchet” Harry Lonsdale or Alan Ford’s psychopathic pig enthusiast, Brick Top. From there it’s all about delaying the inevitable showdown with as many undercard bouts as possible between interesting supporting characters like Vinnie Jones’ relatively nice bad men Big Chris and Bullet Tooth Tony and various allies, enemies and enemies-turned-allies (and vice-versa) played by the likes of Goldie, Benicio Del Toro, Dennis Farina and Brad Pitt's memorably mumbling pikey brawler, Mickey O'Neil. The real trick, though, is taking the material just seriously enough to maintain dramatic tension, while never quite taking it seriously enough to require tortured method acting from, say, Jeremy Piven. (AO)

THE STING (1973)

While The Grifters made the life of a con artist look bleak and despairing, as fit the work of a born cynic like Jim Thompson, The Sting – a smash hit when it first appeared in 1973 – made it look like quite a dreamy little profession, all natty outfits and colorful slang and snappy patter with your partner, accompanied by the rollicking ragtime strains of Scott Joplin. Of course, no one ever accused George Roy Hill of going for realism in The Sting; what he was trying to do was recapture the dynamite charisma his leads, Robert Redford and Paul Newman, had shared in their previous outing, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Amazingly, he captured lightning in a bottle twice, and even if audiences had a hard time following the big-payoff swindle that Redford and Newman had planned against the sting’s intended target, Robert Shaw, they didn’t seem to care. It all looked like such a lark, who cared about the details? (LP)

MIDNIGHT COWBOY (1969)

Explaining his reasons for lighting out from his dishwasher's job in Texas, Joe Buck (Jon Voight) says that there's "a lot of rich women back there beggin' for it -- payin' for it, too. And the men are mostly tooty fruities!" Not long after arriving in the big city, Joe beds Sylvia Miles, which settles any doubts you might have had about how hard he's willing to dedicate himself to his craft. However, he ends up paying her, a sure sign that he may lack the management skills necessary to be successfully self-employed. Luckily, Ratso (Dustin Hoffman), the slimy, crippled greaseball with the tubercular cough takes him into his apartment in a condemned building and offers to pimp him to the best of his abilities. The film doubles as a snapshot of the Times Square New York of the pre-Giuliani cleanup era; anyone who sees it and still professes feelings of nostalgia for the good old days is seriously ill. (PN)

BOB LE FLAMBEUR (1956)

Jean-Pierre Melville was the high priest of French noir, and Bob le Flambeur was one of his crowning achievements, a heist film so expertly orchestrated that, along with the preceding The Asphalt Jungle, it helped set a template still employed half a century later. The set-up involves aging, dapper gambler and thief Bob (Roger Deuchesne), who’s so well-liked that he’s friends with the chief of police, and who – after finding himself down on his luck – endeavors to change his fortunes by recruiting a crew for a lucrative casino score. Bob’s day-to-day existence revolves around taking chances, meaning that his eventual decision to pull off one last robbery is simply an example of a man recognizing his inherent nature. If Bob remains true to himself until the end, so too does Melville, whose expressionistic direction magnificently set the stage for the forthcoming French New Wave. Dark, sumptuous shadows, stunning iris shots, and on-location cinematography breathe melancholic life into this portrait of the romantic allure of a big score, and of the inescapable hand of fate. (NS)

CHRISTMAS IN JULY (1940)

By the standards of Preston Sturges's later, wilder films, the dreams on display here are rather modest, but they manage to inspire an impressive amount of damage anyway. Dick Powell, at his most ingratiatingly sappy, is the luckless young striver who wants to secure a solid enough place for himself that he can marry his girl, Ellen Drew. Dick decides that his best chance is to win the $25,000 top prize for the Maxford House Coffee Slogan, a shot in the dark that becomes a major point of his masculine pride when Ellen casts doubt on his submission: "If you can't sleep, it's not the coffee, it's the bunk!" (She persists in not liking it even after he's explained it to her, which he does at some length.) In perhaps the most straightforward plotline Sturges ever conceived, pranksters trick Dick into believing that he's won, Dick somehow gets his hands on the money and plays Mr. Big Spender, his boss forces a promotion on him in recognition of his previously unsuspected genius for concocting advertising slogans, the truth is revealed, Dick is chastened, and then of course it turns out that he really did win the contest because nobody sent in anything better. (PN)

Click Here For Part One, Two, Three, Four & Five

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Leonard Pierce, Phil Nugent, Nick Schager

The Best & Worst Get Rich Quick Schemes In Cinema History! (Part Two)

Andrew Osborne — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 20:30:00 GMT

RISKY BUSINESS (1983)

Sex sells...especially here on Nerve.com, which is why I included the HOT!!!! train sex clip above rather than, say, a clip of Bronson Pinchot counting money in the suburban bordello launched by Tom Cruise’s home-alone upper-middle-class teen wanker Joel and Rebecca De Mornay’s hooker with a heart of coal, Lana, the better to separate Joel’s horny friends from their virginity (not to mention their trust funds). But, in the same way Deadwood’s Machiavellian barkeep Al Swearengen realized the best way to get rich quick during the South Dakota gold rush was simply to bilk the prospectors, Joe Pantoliano -- in his breakthrough role as Guido the Killer Pimp -- is the movie's real schemer, winding up with all the money from Joel’s Young Enterpriser start-up. In a similar way, Tom Cruise wound up reaping most of the benefits from Risky Business, which launched his career into the A-list stratosphere while writer/director Paul Brickman somehow didn’t get to direct another movie until 1990’s Men Don’t Leave, by which point his once seemingly promising career had gone in the drink like Joel’s Porsche (along with the A-list dreams of Mornay and my own personal rooting interest, Curtis “Booger” Armstrong). But that’s capitalism, for ya! (AO)

LE CERCLE ROUGE (1970)

Jean-Pierre Melville’s second-to-last film finds the auteur reuniting with his Le Samouraï star Alain Delon for another romantically fatalistic, existential crime saga. The expansive plot involves Delon’s thief, who’s released from prison, promptly rips off his mob employer, and then enlists the aid of a fugitive murderer (Gian Maria Volonte) and a boozehound ex-cop (Yves Montand) for a jewelry heist. Melville’s orchestration of the robbery boasts his trademark efficiency and lucidity, though what resonates more forcefully is his loving portrait of male camaraderie, as well as his tough-guys’ adherence to male codes of honor and conduct. As in most of the director’s neo-noirs, Delon and company are defined by their professional rituals, by the scrupulousness with which they carry out their tasks. As such, they’re ideal stand-ins for Melville himself, a master of the cinematic form who – as ably illustrated by the prolonged, taut central swindle – blended formal rigorousness with off-the-cuff jazziness to create an entrancing movie’s-movie vision of hoods, dames and doom. (NS)

THE PRODUCERS (1968)

Broadway producer Max Bialystock used to live the good life. Champagne, limousines, and girls, girls, girls! But now he’s reduced to wearing a cardboard belt, avoiding his landlord, and hustling old ladies to get money to pay his bills. He’d become used to high living, and it’s an addiction he can’t shake. What’s more, he’s no spring chicken; he’s only about 20 years behind his elderly clients like “Hold Me Touch Me”. He’s the very definition of someone who needs to get rich, and quick. Lucky for him, into his life – and his office – walks nervous accountant Leo Bloom, whose nebbishy temperament and genius with figures are just what Max needs to hatch his plan: to produce a play so awful that it will close on the first night – thus allowing him to pocket all the money he intends to bilk his little old ladies into overpaying. Like most great get-rich schemes, its elegant simplicity is its appeal – and likewise its downfall. Max picks a play, a cast, and a crew so profoundly awful that there’s no way they can possibly succeed, which, naturally, they do, and watching how it all plays out is one of the great joys of 1960s comedy. (LP)

THE KILLING (1956)

Those of us who were introduced to the cinema of Stanley Kubrick through his later Baroque Period and worked our way backward may have initially felt like this tight, twisty crime picture was the work of another filmmaker entirely. Kubrick’s bleak view of humanity is already fully formed, however, in this case ably assisted by noir novelist Jim Thompson (The Killer Inside Me), and his technical proficiency – notably as it relates to the movie’s innovative and influential time-shifting structure – is unmistakable. The granddaddy of all “one last heist” movies, The Killing boasts a rock-solid cast of retro roughnecks (including Sterling Hayden, Ted de Corsia and the inimitable Timothy Carey), a well-oiled racetrack robbery that can’t possibly go wrong, and a vicious, noose-tightening sense of impending doom when it inevitably does go wrong. The final image is the essence of noir fatalism boiled down to a bitter punchline – a peerless visual representation of the get-rich-quick scheme gone awry. (SVD)

THE LAVENDER HILL MOB (1951)

Henry Holland, the London bank clerk played by Alec Guinness in this dry British heist comedy, has spent twenty years working on the slow part of his "get rich quick" scheme -- i.e., building up a supremely boring image so that his employers will trust him implicitly with the gold bullion whose transportation he regularly supervises. Holland decides that he's waited long enough when he meets Stanley Holloway, the owner of a foundry that manufactures cheap souvenirs and the last piece of his plan clicks into place: how to smuggle the gold out of the country once it's been stolen. The two melt down their swag and use it to make little Eiffel tower-shaped paperweights, then race to Paris to intersect them before they're sold in the gift shops to lucky tourists. In the end, they must pay for their dastardly deed, but at least Holland gets to meet Audrey Hepburn. (PN)

Click Here For Part One, Three, Four, Five & Six

Contributors: Andrew Osborne, Nick Schager, Leonard Pierce, Scott Von Doviak, Phil Nugent

OST: "Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai"

Leonard Pierce — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:00:00 GMT

If you've been following the "OST" feature here at the Screengrab for a while, or even if you're just familiar with the kind of chicanery that goes on in the music business under the guise of protecting intellectual property, you'll know that an astonishingly large number of movie soundtracks present you with a product that's wildly -- even borderline fraudulently -- different from what you encountered in the movie. The difficulty and cost of obtaining clearance rights to music, especially for small, cash-poor independent films, and the greed and short-sightedness of record companies (or just their willingness to butt heads with equally greedy movie companies over the size of their slice of the pie) has sunk many a soundtrack. Jim Jarmusch's inventive, compelling Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai ran afoul of this very problem, but with a curious endgame: there are, in fact, two available records affiliated with the movie -- one best described as a soundtrack, and the other a score. Both are extremely worthwhile, but neither is completely successful on its own; both are very different in character, although they were written by the same person; and both feature material from the film as well as material that never appeared in it, though only one is available in the United States.

It should come as no surprise that Jarmusch's 1999 pseudo-remake of Jean-Pierre Melville's fantastic Le Samourai features a terrific soundtrack. As befits his image as a New York hipster filmmaker, Jim Jarmusch's movies have always placed music in a prominent position; from the haunting, unnerving guitar wails of Neil Young that formed the basis of the soundtrack to Dead Man to the exotic, emotionally powerful jazz-funk of Ethiopian composer Mulatu Astaque that was featured in Broken Flowers, Jarmusch is one of a handful of directors -- others include Quentin Tarantino, Wes Anderson, and Sofia Coppola -- who can be counted on to take as much care with the soundtrack as they do with the film itself. After reading that Italian-American mafiosi were fond of gangsta rap, and consulting with his star Forest Whitaker, Jarmusch decided to bring in the RZA, producer and mastermind behind the hugely influential Wu-Tang Clan, to write both the score and the soundtrack to Ghost Dog. This began a collaboration between the two that became deeper and more profound than either had anticipated; the RZA ended up consulting with Jarmusch on some of the language of the street hustlers in the film, helped out with the design and costuming, and even appears briefly in the film (as do Timbo King and a handful of the Wu-Tang Killa Bees auxiliary). The movie and the music are gorgeously integrated on every level, reflecting a realness that couldn't have come about if any other director and any other musician had been behind it: scenes are perfectly broken up by the intrusion of killer hip-hop tracks (all of which the RZA wrote, produced, or both); the scenes themselves feature gorgeous nighttime driving shots of Whitaker's lethal but loyal assassin, accompanied by evocative, skeletal beats also made by the RZA.

Unfortunately, things went awry, as things often do. Epic, which then had a stranglehold of a contract on the RZA's work, saw the release of the film -- which they couldn't have cared less about -- as nothing more than an opportunity to release new RZA-penned singles to the hip-hop market. They saw no value whatsoever in the instrumental score he'd worked so hard on, and which so perfectly complemented the film. As a result, when the licensing deal was penned with Razor Sharp, the company that released the soundtrack, Epic gave them permission only to use the hip-hop songs the RZA produced, and none of the instrumental score. Eventually, an alternate version of the soundtrack -- this time featuring a number of excellent selections from the score -- was released, but only in Japan. The result is the unsatisfying split alluded to above: here in America, the only version of the soundtrack you're likely to find is the one featuring the rap songs -- which, make no mistake, are almost uniformly excellent, but suffer from a lack of completeness. If you're lucky enough to live in Japan, or shell out extra money to import the version available there, you'll get parts of the score -- at the cost of the great rap singles. So, in the end, the Ghost Dog soundtracks remain two imperfect halves of an incredible whole, and are likely to remain so as long as greed gets in the way. Or, to put it another way, forever.

BEST TRACKS: Assuming you're either unable or unwilling to get hold of the Japanese version of the soundtrack to Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, we'll assume that you're listening to the American version, illustrated above. (The score segments are replaced by rather useless "samurai code quotes" from the movie.) Don't despair, though; while you aren't hearing the whole picture, you're still getting some amazing RZA-penned hip-hop. Some of the best tracks here include the Wu-Tang's featured track, "Fast Shadow", a raw-sounding, desperate slice of urban paranoia; "Strange Eyes", a groovy, expressive effort by the Wu spinoff group Sunz of Man; and, especially, "Don't Test/Wu Stallion", an evocative, insinuating dub groove by underrated Jamaican toaster Suga Bang Bang, which slithers from one pole to another over a killer minimalist beat by the RZA, which suggests the score that you're missing.

Related Posts:

OST: Krush Groove

OST: He Got Game

DVD Digest for October 7, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 14:00:00 GMT

It’s a massive week for classic films, and a surprisingly good one for new releases too, once you get past the big Hollywood titles…

DVD of the Week: There was no small amount of competition for this spot, not merely because of the jaw-dropping number of classic titles being release but also due to one of TV’s best sitcoms seeing its most recent season bow on DVD store shelves. But with all the great stuff that’s hitting stores this week, to my eyes there was only one logical choice- Universal’s Touch of Evil 50th Anniversary Edition. It would be one thing if this DVD was simply a cash-in, a new pressing of the previously released 1998 cut of the film. But joining the “restored” version of the film are both the original theatrical cut and an additional “preview version”, both of which are being released on DVD for the first time. In addition, there are plenty of extras both old and new, including commentary tracks to correspond with each of the three available versions of the movie. What more could a Touch of Evil fan ask for? How about a reproduction of the legendary Orson Welles memo that led to the 1998 restoration? Yep, that’s in here too. I don’t normally double-dip my DVDs, but I’m definitely going to make the upgrade this time.

But wait, there’s more! Disney is releasing a 2-disc “Platinum Edition” of their 1959 classic Sleeping Beauty, packed with plenty of extras for both family audiences and animation buffs. Criterion is releasing two more films from the French master of crime dramas, Jean-Pierre Melville- Le Doulos (starring Jean-Paul Belmondo) and Le Deuxieme Souffle (with Lino Ventura). There are new 2-disc special editions of three of Hitchcock’s most iconic classics- Psycho, Rear Window, and Vertigo (all Universal). And Ray Harryhausen is representin’ here too, with a new DVD of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad 50th Anniversary Edition (Sony, also Blu-Ray), plus the Ray Harryhausen Giftset (Sony, also Blu-Ray), which includes previously-released editions of 20 Million Miles to Earth, It Came From Beneath the Sea, and Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, plus collectible Ymir figurine.

Also, like musicals? Then pick up Fox’s The Alice Faye Collection Volume 2, which contains Hollywood Cavalcade, The Great American Broadcast, Four Jills in a Jeep, Rose of Washington Square, and Hello, Frisco, Hello (also available separately). And with the winter months coming sooner than you’d think, you can start traveling in the comfort of your own home with The Michael Palin Collection (Warner), which collects the amiable Python’s adventures Around the World in 80 Days, Pole to Pole, Full Circle, Hemingway Adventure, Great Railways Journeys, Sahara and Himalaya into one handy box set. Finally, Warner is releasing two very different classic titles, The Picture of Dorian Gray and the Watership Down Deluxe Edition. So yeah, something for everyone.

But wait, there’s more! Two of my favorite films from the first half of 2008 are hitting the streets today- Gus Van Sant’s Paranoid Park (Genius Productions) and Stuart Gordon’s Stuck (Image Entertainment). And two other acclaimed indies are getting released as well, The Visitor (Anchor Bay, also Blu-Ray) starring Screengrab fave Richard Jenkins, and Boy A (Genius Productions). And, oh yeah… The Happening (Fox, also Blu-Ray) and You Don’t Mess With the Zohan (Sony, also Blu-Ray). Although I’m not sure I want to know anybody who’d buy these instead of any of the aforementioned classics.

This week’s TV on DVD release is 30 Rock Season 2 (Universal), which finds Liz, Jack, Tracy, Kenneth the Page, and the rest of the TGS gang taking a trip to MILF Island, among other misadventures. Also this week: Brotherhood Season 2 (Paramount), How I Met Your Mother Season 3 (Fox), and The Simpsons Season 11 (Fox).

Finally, this week’s Halloween-heavy Blu-Ray only releases include: The Amityville Horror (MGM), Beetlejuice 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition (Warner), Body Heat (Warner), Young Frankenstein (Fox), Carrie (MGM), and Otis (Warner). No word on whether Carré Otis is somehow involved.

DVD Digest for June 17, 2008

Paul Clark — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 14:00:00 GMT

This week, a French tough guy classic comes to DVD, and musical lovers will go bananas… so to speak.

DVD of the Week: Today, director Claude Sautet is best-known to lovers of French cinema for his relationship dramas such as Nelly et Monsieur Arnaud and Un Coeur en Hiver. However, closer examination of Sautet’s career shows that he’s more versatile than his reputation would suggest. One fascinating recent discovery for me was Sautet’s breakthrough film, 1960’s Classe Tous Risques (The Criterion Collection). Starring two of French cinema’s most iconic badasses- Lino Ventura and Jean-Paul Belmondo- Classe Tous Risques is a character study that walks and talks like a taut, stylish crime thriller, but it works on both levels. Ventura in particular is sublime, so effortless and minimalistic that one can almost see the young Belmondo taking notes during their scenes together. Criterion’s new DVD edition features an interview with Ventura, along with documentaries on Sautet and writer Jose Giovanni, and numerous essays including two by directors Bertrand Tavernier and Jean-Pierre Melville. Pretty much a must-buy for lovers of big-screen tough guys… and French cinema fans, for that matter.

This week’s other notable classic DVD is Fox’s Carmen Miranda Collection, which features five of the colorful songstress’ best-loved titles. The set includes a newly restored version of The Gang’s All Here plus DVD debuts of Doll Face, Greenwich Village, If I’m Lucky and Something For the Boys. Other new Miranda titles coming to DVD this week (sold separately) are Weekend in Havana, That Night in Rio and Down Argentine Way. Also of note are Popeye the Sailor, 1938-1940: Vol. 2 (Warner), The Sword and the Stone 45th Anniversary Special Edition (Disney), and in conjunction with the release of Mike Myers in The Love Guru, So I Married An Axe Murderer (Sony, also Blu-Ray).

Recent movies coming to DVD include: Michel Gondry’s Be Kind Rewind (New Line, also Blu-Ray); the long-awaited reteaming of Kate Hudson and Matthew McConaughey in Fool’s Gold (Warner, also Blu-Ray); Martin Lawrence and family in Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins (Fox); and the arthouse sleeper hit Under the Same Moon (Fox).

Finally, the week’s sole Blu-Ray only titles? Men in Black (Sony). So now you know.