Forgotten Films: LEO THE LAST (dir. John Boorman, 1970)
11/15/2006 5:00:00 PM
As you might expect, the late 1960s and early 1970s gave us many films that indulged in dreamy scenes of hippy-dippy expressionism playing off the drug culture of the era. On one side you had movies like Joe Massot’s Wonderwall (1968), which didn’t really bother to tell any stories and grooved on their own stoned-out stylization. On the other, works like Michelangelo Antonioni’s classic Blow-Up (1966) tried to incorporate such indulgences into more traditional narratives. Perched somewhere between the two extremes is John Boorman’s Leo the Last, which, despite a Best Director award at the 1970 Cannes Film Festival, has rarely been heard of since.
The Leo of the film’s title is the last in a line of exiled Eastern European monarchs, played with submerged longing by Marcello Mastroianni. Our shy scion arrives in London, to a mansion-like family home that lies at the end of an impoverished cul-de-sac, a hotbed of poverty, thievery, rape, and various other social ills. While his father was reportedly a man of grand bearing and historical presence, an associate of the likes of DeGaulle and Churchill, Leo himself is not good around people. Though attended to constantly by servants, a socialite girlfriend (Billie Whitelaw), and shifty assistants, he would rather stay by his window and look through his telescope at the pigeons on the rooftops. Aloof, unable to connect with the world (“He feels nothing,” his people murmur behind him, like a Greek chorus), Leo is at once a symbol of both rotting privilege and bourgeois modernity: Bits and pieces of T.S. Eliot’s ode to alienation, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” regularly float by on the soundtrack.
While observing his birds, Leo becomes involved -- vicariously, of course -- in the desperate lives of an African family living in a crowded flat across the street. He spies on excitedly as the oldest daughter, Salambo (Glenna Forster-Jones) and her boyfriend Roscoe (Calvin Lockhart) execute an elaborate plan to steal a turkey from the local grocer. He watches helplessly as Salambo is almost raped by a local thug, which in turn leads to Roscoe’s arrest.
Drawn slowly out of his shell, Leo gradually becomes more and more involved with his neighbors, trying to help them by buying them groceries and finally intervening personally, when Salambo is driven into prostitution. (Her pimp, by the way, is played by a young Louis Gossett, Jr.) By inserting himself into the drama across the street, Leo manages to face down his own social neurosis. One could compare him to Jimmy Stewart's character in Rear Window, and it's hard not to think that Boorman had Hitchcock's film in mind when making this one.
On paper, this will seem impossibly bleak. But Leo the Last is not some gritty piece of neorealism. Boorman brings to his characters’ lives a lyrical grandeur that feels more like a piece of music than anything else. In fact the soundtrack, by Fred Myrow, is full of musical commentary on the goings onscreen: A scene where Roscoe tries to capture a bird with a net gives us the symbolic, haunting image of a man reaching for the skies while a voice sings, “Where do the hopes go/With all of the longings/You thought were lost?/But they’re only waiting/Up in the sky/For someone to find them.”
If this sounds almost painfully earnest, that’s because it is. But it’s all masterfully redeemed by Boorman’s ability to infuse even the smallest gesture with a unique poetic energy, a talent that had already served him well in Point Blank and would again in films like Excalibur and The Emerald Forest.
If it wasn’t so damned cinematic, Leo the Last could have probably made for an insane stage musical. It’s built almost entirely of setpieces, some of which feel more like avant-garde dance works than anything else. A hilarious scene where Leo’s family doctor tries to get the household to relax through nude water therapy is filmed largely underwater, where Boorman’s camera can focus lovingly on the subjects’ naked, gelatinous, hypnotically undulating rear ends. The finale, in which Leo and Roscoe lead the poor of the neighborhood against the barricades of Leo’s own mansion, feels as much like a grand theatrical finale as it does a cinematic climax.
But I fear I’m making Boorman’s film sound a bit too much like an opaque piece of avant-garde street theater and not enough of a real movie. Nothing could be farther from the truth. With Mastroianni’s performance as an anchor, Leo the Last is a thoroughly involving, heartbreaking little film. Plus, of all the directors to emerge in the 60s, I’m not sure anyone was better than John Boorman in melding the stylized, revolutionary aesthetic of the period into a narrative framework. I’d say he took it to an extreme in Leo the Last, but I’d be lying; he took it to its real extreme in Exorcist II: The Heretic and paid dearly for it. In Leo, one could say he found the ideal blend. The result is a fascinating time capsule that still makes for a compelling, heartfelt drama today.
 | | John Boorman |
So, how do you see it? Leo the Last has never been available on video, pretty much never gets shown on TV, is rarely screened theatrically, and is not currently available on DVD in the US. But those with multi-region players can enjoy this Spanish DVD release of the film, which actually looks and sounds surprisingly good.
--Bilge Ebiri
Previous Forgotten Films Columns:
- October 30, 2006 -- 7 WOMEN (dir. John Ford, 1966)
- October 16, 2006 -- REIGN OF TERROR (aka The Black Book) (dir. Anthony Mann, 1949)
- October 3, 2006 -- MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON (dir. Bob Rafelson, 1989)
- August 18, 2006 -- LUNA (dir. Bernardo Bertolucci, 1979)
- August 28, 2006 -- OUR MOTHER’S HOUSE (dir. Jack Clayton, 1967)
- August 14, 2006 -- THE CHOCOLATE WAR (dir. Keith Gordon, 1988)
- July 31, 2006 -- THE STRANGER (dir. Luchino Visconti, 1967)
- July 17, 2006 -- WALKER (dir. Alex Cox, 1987)
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Video of the Day 2: The Original Casino Royale…Lest We Forget
11/15/2006 3:45:00 PM
“A world full of beautiful women and all men shorter than yourself.” Here’s one of the climactic scenes from the original Casino Royale, which hilariously spoofed the Bond series well before it was fashionable to do so. Here, retired agent James Bond (David Niven) realizes that his allegedly diabolical nemesis is his own loser nephew Jimmy Bond (Woody Allen).
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This Week in Irony: Why Mad Max 4 Didn't Happen
11/15/2006 3:00:00 PM
Reportedly, George Miller still wants to make the next Mad Max film, though he now admits it will most likely not star Mel Gibson. He also says that the sequel, titled Mad Max 4: Fury Road, came very close to happening in 2003, only to be canceled due to complications caused by the Iraq War.
Talk about the future catching up with you: A post-apocalyptic movie about a future with no oil is pre-empted by an apocalyptic war for oil. Next week: The Matrix 4 gets derailed by a computer virus.
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Worst Moviegoing Experiences: Let the Children's Laughter Remind Us How We Used To Be
11/15/2006 2:15:00 PM
Yes, yes, I know. More stories about screaming kids. But if those previous stories were the equivalent of a tense horror movie, this story, from reader C.K., is the megamillion dollar, ante-upping sequel. Truly horrifying.
You’ve had a lot of stories about people going to movies and having them ruined because people brought their babies and screaming kids into the movie. What about entire classes full of screaming kids?
I went to see Demolition Man in the theater, and there was a whole class of kids there, about 30 or 40. I am guessing that they were in sixth grade or so, but it’s possible they were middle schoolers. Extremely rowdy, crazy middle schoolers who should not have been seeing an action movie starring Wesley Snipes and Sylvester Stallone.
As soon as the lights went down in the theater the kids started screaming and some of them actually began running down the aisles and taunting each other. There were two teachers and they yelled at them a couple of times. In response they would sit and be quiet for maybe one minute. And then they would get louder.
People started yelling at them to shut up, but it was sometimes so loud that no one could hear them. Not that they would have paid any attention.
About ten minutes into the movie, one of the teachers went out to the lobby to buy popcorn. That left one teacher remaining in the theater, and she was no match for the chaos that ensued. Kids running everywhere, screaming. Boys taunting girls, pulling their hair. Even Demolition Man, which is one of the loudest movies ever, was no match for these screaming, spastic brats.
After the teacher came back with the popcorn, they actually calmed down while they ate their popcorn. For about five minutes. Then they started throwing the popcorn.
An usher came in to tell them they had to be quiet, or leave. They said they would, then started to snicker behind his back as he left. Within a few minutes, they were back at it.
I decided to leave about halfway through the movie. As I was leaving, I saw the ushers outside discussing what they were going to do about this. They were saying something about evicting them from the theater. I thought, briefly, about going back in, if only just to see these lunatics kicked out on their asses.
But then I decided I had better things to do with my time. And I got the hell out of there.
Previous Worst Moviegoing Experiences:
- Inside the Ghost Theater
- Children of the Porn
- Everything Is Explicable In The Terms Of The Behavior Of A Small Child
- Greatest. Screaming. Baby. Story. Ever.
- You Can’t Shut An Actor Up. You Just Can’t.
- Piiiraaates!
- Meet Joe Black, Meet My Limp Noodle
- BewareA Man Bearing Flowers
- When They Called it “Vomit-Inducing,” They Weren’t Kidding.
-Misadventures of a Right Wing Film Geek
-A Good Reason for an International Incident
- Meet the Times Square Crowd. Plus, Sly’s Biggest Fan
- Miami %$*&#!
- ”Like Some Sort of Small Machine
- Hollow Man, No Pants
- Life Imitates Art?
- Men at Work
- Confessions of a Movie Theater Employee
- Introducing Mrs. Inconsiderate Cell Phone Lady
- A Hollywood History Lesson Gets Out of Control
- Mousy Academic Type Takes Matters Into Own Hands, Falls On Face
- Befuddled Tot Likes Windu, Suspicious of Amidala
- ”She Rode a Horse…”
- Screaming Baby + Scorsese Movie = Trouble
Got a terrible, terrifying, or hilarious moviegoing experience to share? Send it to us at screengrab@nerve.com
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Interviews Galore: Carrie Fisher, Eva Green, Owen Wilson, and More
11/15/2006 1:30:00 PM
- “I’d host the evening, and end up roasting George: ‘Now I’m going to introduce someone who knows George better than anyone, except for a couple of hookers from Hong Kong. But they couldn’t be here because they’re busy at another benefit, for Mel Gibson.’” - Carrie Fisher talks to the New York Times about how her experiences hosting a variety of George Lucas tributes gave way to her new one-woman show. (Hat tip: Movie City News.)
- “An Italian journalist told me that [Bernardo Bertolucci] was a bit angry that I was doing a ‘Bond girl’ but he’s like a father and he’s probably disappointed that I would leave my femme fatale image for a Bond girl. Maybe I will invite him to the premiere.” - Eva Green discusses her role in Casino Royale
- “You don't have to worry about the way you look, going in and doing hair and makeup and having everybody looking at you and judging you in wardrobe. You can roll out of bed, clear your throat and go to work." - Owen Wilson talks about why he loves doing animation so much.
- ”Getting your film distributed is like having 3 full-time jobs at the same time, none of which pay. I've managed to stay afloat with occasional freelance work, consulting, some wedding videos (which, yes, I still shoot), and honorariums. But it's been a sucky year income-wise.” - Director Doug Block, whose documentary 51 Birch Street is winning raves across the board, discusses the perils of releasing a small film.
- “My whole future is going to be carved out in 96 hours.” - Former indie distributor Jeff Lipsky on the impending release of his own second feature film, Flannel Pajamas. (Hat tip: Green Cine Daily.)
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Video of the Day 1: Winner Takes Steve
11/15/2006 12:45:00 PM
Here’s a characteristically understated short from Napoleon Dynamite director Jared Hess. Produced for Nike but never shown, it’s actually pretty hilarious. I always did wonder how kids who had the same name settled it once and for all. Enjoy.
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One of the Stars of Idiocracy Speaks Out
11/15/2006 12:10:00 PM
Finally, someone closely involved with the production of Mike Judge’s unceremoniously-dumped Idiocracy speaks out about what happened – or, at least, what he thinks happened. CHUD.com cornered Dax Shepard, who was promoting his latest, Let’s Go To Prison, and asked him about his impressions of why the film was never given a proper release.
“There are all kinds of conspiracy theories surrounding it now, but there are a couple of issues. One is that it tested poorly, and they base all their P&A funds on how well it tests. But what they didn’t step back and think about is that the people who go see a free test screening on a Saturday night are the people being made fun of in the movie, so of course it didn’t test well. And then I think there are also issues with all the corporate attacks and Rupert [Murdoch] being a very immersed guy in the corporate world, globally...Because they did more than dump it – they sabotaged it. They intentionally listed it wrong on Moviefone, in my opinion...[T]hey did not fund the special effects the way it should have been. I know [Robert] Rodriguez donated some shots; he and Mike Judge are friends…But I get it – Fox is not in the business of making boutique comedies that appeal to you and I…The only perplexing thing about the Mike Judge movie is, why did they make it? The ballsy thing, in my opinion, was making the movie. The movie was the script – they knew what it was going to be. I don’t understand them making it in the first place. It doesn’t shock me that they didn’t know how to market it, but I’m shocked they made it.”
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Churning Out Trash in More Ways Than One
11/15/2006 11:30:00 AM
“The city of Los Angeles is principally famous for two things: glittering movies and suffocating smog. Now researchers have found that the two are not unconnected. A study by the University of California Los Angeles shows the film and television industry to be the second largest polluter in the Los Angeles area. Only the region's oil refineries pump more pollutants into the air, it says. While Hollywood has a reputation for pumping out unregulated quantities of hot air, the research is the first to quantify the industry's emissions. The two-year study estimates that the industry emits 140,000 tonnes a year of ozone and diesel particulate emissions.”
- The Guardian confirms what we’ve always known.
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An Original Faulkner Script About the Undead Rises From the Dead
11/15/2006 10:45:00 AM
The LA Times’s Scriptland column has a scoop on William Faulkner’s only un-produced, feature-length script:
“[William] Faulkner had a legendarily complicated relationship with Hollywood, which he initially attempted to exploit for easy money before becoming so annoyed that he ultimately retreated to Mississippi…Beginning in 1932, and intermittently over the next 13 years, Faulkner was a contract writer at MGM, Fox and Warner Bros. who mainly wrote screenplays for good friend and drinking buddy Howard Hawks…In the midst of all this, Faulkner apparently spun out a vampire saga set in an anonymous Eastern European location.” Producer Lee Caplin, who has exclusive access to Faulkner’s letters and works “plans to relocate the story to the Deep South and has a high-end computer-graphics firm on the hook to dress it up with modern effects.”
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Morning Deal Report: Cruise, Redford Team Up
11/15/2006 10:00:11 AM
- The Tom Cruise version of United Artists has made its first acquisition: the Afghanistan-set multiple-narrative-strand drama Lions for Lambs, which will feature Robert Redford (who will also direct), Meryl Streep, and Cruise himself. Cruise will star “as a congressman under investigation by a dogged journalist (Streep)” and Redford will play “an idealistic professor who attempts to inspire a privileged student in his class.”
- Prison Break hunk Dominic Purcell and Desperate Housewives hunk Jesse Metcalfe will star in Joel Schumacher’s next film, Town Creek, a vampire horror flick. “The two will star as brothers on a mission of revenge who become trapped in a harrowing occult experiment that dates back to the Third Reich.”
- Will Ferrell and Adam McKay are continuing to buy product. Now they’ve bought the film rights to Frank Portman's debut novel, King Dork, which “centers on 14-year-old Tom Henderson, a typical high school slacker whose life changes when he finds his late father's copy of the Salinger classic The Catcher in the Rye.
- MGM will distribute The Flying Scotsman, starring Jonny Lee Miller as real-life Scottish bicyclist Graeme Obree, “a mentally ill man who broke world records on a bicycle he designed from scrap metal and old washing machine parts.”
- The late actress and filmmaker Adrienne Shelly’s family has set up The Adrienne Shelly Foundation, a non-profit which will feature “a Women's Filmmaking Scholarship Fund, with a particular emphasis on awarding film school scholarships and helping women make the transition from acting to directing.”
- Fomer Beach Boys genius Brian Wilson may be teaming up with producer Mark Gordon to bring his life story to film. David Leaf, who directed the Wilson doc Beautiful Dreamer, as well as the recent US Vs. John Lennon is also attached.
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The Borat Backlash, It Begin
11/15/2006 8:30:00 AM
- The Hollywood Reporter has a report on the various people wronged by Borat. Not just those frat boys, but also a morning show producer who was fired after being duped into giving him air time. “Cohen's live appearance, in which he said he had to go ‘urine’ and hugged a bemused weatherman, led her life into a downward spiral…She is seeking an apology.”
- Christopher Hitchens brings a new, more cynical perspective to Borat’s shenanigans, suggesting that the film reveals not how crass Americans are, but actually how open-minded: ”Is it too literal-minded to point out what any viewer of the movie can see for himself—that the crowd at the rodeo stops cheering quite fast when it realizes that something is amiss; that the car salesman is extremely patient about everything from demands for pussy magnets to confessions of bankruptcy; and that the man in the gun shop won't sell the Kazakh a weapon? …It's that attitude of painfully maintained open-mindedness and multiculturalism that is really being unmasked and satirized by our man from the 'stan.”
- Finally, ScreenGrab friend Branan Edgens, a talented filmmaker in his own right (I highly recommend his insane sci-fi short Hokus Fokus), posted a very insightful, and damning, anti-Borat screed on Rotten Tomatoes, which bears excerpting at length:
” For the most part Sacha does not find the racism he is so desperate to expose. Instead he finds polite people willing to open their houses to a totally obnoxious stranger and offer him their very best. For their kindness Sacha rewards them with contempt and public humiliation. For their tolerance of his offensive behavior and forgiving natures they receive Sacha’s ever-escalating crudity until finally they do what any normal person would do -- politely ask him to leave. Sacha’s masterful control of the event then makes it appear on screen as though he was nearly lynched by ignorant and violent bigots….[He] is not making a documentary. The college kids were in a RV rented by the production, plied with alcohol and told the footage would never show in the US. Also, please notice in the rodeo scene that the booing sound is added in post and the people in the unfocused background are, in fact, laughing. (Full disclosure here: I happen to know people connected with Da Ali Show and none of them would work with him again).
“Laughter does not always signify “funny”. I vividly recall a Pulitzer winning photograph of a man beating a bloated, hanging corpse over the head with a metal folding chair. The man is surrounded by over one hundred people pointing at this horror and laughing. In this sense, Sacha evokes the laughter of the blood-drenched Roman coliseum – a place where ‘The enemy’ was sacrificed to lions and to each other. It is a simple ‘us’ against ‘them’ format, ‘we don’t know those people, I had a shitty day, now I want to see someone else suffer!’ Only in hindsight do we recognize the innocence of these victims and the evil of that laughter…”
The flamewar has already begun over Branan’s comments. Join the fray here.
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