Flickers in Time

Phantom of the Paradise
Directed by Brian De Palma
Written by Brian De Palma
1974/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime

The Phantom: “The party of the first part gives the party of the second part and his associates full power to do with him at their pleasure. To rule, to send, to fetch, or carry him or his, be it either body, soul, flesh, blood or goods.” What does that mean?
Swan: That’s a transportation clause.

This rock horror musical was definitely not for me.

Evil impresario Swan (Paul Williams) is getting ready to launch his ultimate rock palace, The Paradise.  Winslow (William Finley) is a nerdy composer who has been working on a rock cantata based on “Faust”.  He spots Phoenix (Jessica Harper) at an audition and decides she is the perfect singer for his music.  Swan steals Winslow’s music and has him beat up and framed for drug dealing.  Following his release from Sing Sing, Winslow has a freak accident that leaves him disfigured.  He becomes the Phantom that haunts the Paradise. Swan convinces him to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for allowing Phoenix to sing the music.

Swan double crosses him and hires a glitter rocker to sing the music but the Phantom scares him off and Phoenix is given the part.  Then Swan steals Phoenix.  We learn that 20 years earlier Swan sold his own soul to the devil in exchange for eternal youth.  If you have seen any version of “The Phantom of the Opera” you will have an idea of what happens next.

I thought this was a loud, stupid, chaotic movie.  The pretentious music couldn’t save it.  If anything about the trailer appeals to you, you will like it better than I did.

Paul Williams and George Aliceson Tipton were nominated for the Best Music, Scoring Original Song Score and/or Adaptation Oscar.

Lenny
Directed by Bob Fosse
Written by Julian Barry from his play
1974/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime

Lenny Bruce: Please! Don’t take away my words! They’re just words! l’m not hurting anybody!

Bob Fosse’s biopic about the lives of controversial comic Lenny Bruce and his stripper wife Honey is dark but compelling.

The movie is told through a series of interviews interspersed with flashbacks.  Lenny Bruce (Dustin Hoffman) got into comedy via his mother Sally Marr (Jan Miner) and started out doing a standard stand-up routine in the Catskills and in small clubs.  His act wasn’t very funny and eventually he was reduced to quipping about the girls between numbers in strip clubs.  There he met gorgeous, erotic stripper Honey (Valerie Perrine) and they became an item.  They married within the year, and he tried to stop her stripping by including her in his act.  She was good at stripping but apparently terrible at whatever she did in the double act.

The couple then moved to California where Bruce developed the improvisational no-holds-barred style he became famous for.  Unfortunately, people that the couple hung out with introduced them to hard drugs which would plague both of them for the remainder of his life.  Honey spent years in prison on various drug charges.  Eventually Bruce kidnapped their daughter Kitty and raised her with support from his mother.  Honey and Lenny had an off-again on-again relationship and retained a bond that lasted well beyond their divorce.

While he was becoming an increasingly popular “hip” and counterculture comic, he was arrested several times for drug possession and a number of times for obscenity.  The arrests and convictions turned Bruce’s act into unfunny readings of his trial transcript and tirades against the system.  He died of an overdose in 1966 at the age of 40.

Since people have been talking and copulating, everybody has enjoyed a good dirty joke or two in private.  Lenny Bruce brought the jokes and naughty words on the stage.  He was made to suffer for it but made stand-up comedy what it is today.  Fosse creates a beautifully sleazy atmosphere in black and white and brought the best out of his actors.  I was especially impressed by Perrine’s tender, complex performance.  Worth seeing if the subject matter appeals.

Lenny was nominated for Academy Awards in the categories of Best Picture; Best Actor; Best Actress; Best Director; Best Writing, Screenplay Adapted From Other Material; and Best Cinematography.

Scenes from a Marriage (Scener ur ett äktenskap)
Directed by Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman
1974/Sweden
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Johan: I don’t posses much self-knowledge, and I know very little about reality, in spite of all the books I’ve read. But I believe that this catastrophe is the chance of a lifetime.

An accessible Bergman film that also goes deep into the human psyche.  I loved this.

Johan (Erland Josephson) is a psychological researcher.  His wife Marianne (Liv Ullmann) is a divorce attorney.  The couple have two little girls.  As the film begins, a journalist is interviewing the two for an article in a woman’s magazine.  They look to have the perfect marriage.

The article is published and is overflowing with praise for the couple.  Marianne and Johan host a dinner for their friends Katarina (Bibi Andersson) and Peter (Jan Malmsjo) to celebrate their 10th anniversary.  As the evening wears on Katarina and Peter get very drunk and engage in a vicious argument in front of their hosts.  After the dinner, we discover there is trouble in paradise also centering on Marianne’s lack of interest in sex.

Shortly after this, Johan arrives at the couple’s summer cottage a day early and announces that he has fallen in love with a 23-year-old and is departing with her for a six-month stay in Paris.  Marianne is devastated and begs him to stay. Johan vents all his complaints about their marriage before leaving.

The rest of the movie follows the next 10 years in the relationship of these people through divorce, disillusionment, affairs, and second marriages.  They meet and part and meet again, alternating sex for old-times sake with brutally frank arguments.

This film leaves you with a lot to think about and considering another viewing. The acting is needless to say impressive.  The script is amazing.  There is nothing fancy in the production design or camera work as the story was first made as a 5-hour mini-series for Swedish television.  I watched the 3-hour theatrical version and the time flew by.

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The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner (Die große Ekstase des Bildschnitzers Steiner)
Directed by Werner Herzog
Written by Werner Herzog
1974/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

I don’t have a fear of flying; I have a fear of crashing. — Billy Bob Thornton

Herzog’s documentary on ski jumping champion Walter Steiner is about so much more than the sport.

Champion Swiss ski-flyer/jumper Walter Steiner sculpts with wood in the off-season.  He loves the sensation of flying.  Fellow ski-jumpers talk about respect for the sport but he is cautious and admits to fear of crashing.  This is particularly acute because he flies so much farther than the others that if he jumps from the same height he is likely to overshoot the slope and die.

The documentary features many spectacular ski-jumps and crashes.  We also get deep into Steiner’s psychology and media, peer and other pressure for him to push his limits. The second half of the film is devoted to a match in Yugoslavia.  Herzog, who provides commentary on camera, creates as much suspense as you might get in a fiction film.

I love to watch the Winter Olympics and have always admired the grace and skill of ski-jumpers.  So this was a real treat.  The film was made for German TV and Herzog had access to state-of-the-art equipment to film the jumpers.  The movie looks beautiful, has a wonderful score by Popul Vuh, and I could listen to Herzog talk all day.  It’s only 45 minutes long.  Recommended.

The Phantom of Liberty (La fantôme de la liberté)
Directed by Luis Buñuel
Written by Luis Buñuel and Jean-Claude Carriere
1974/France
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Foucauld: I’m sick of symmetry.

Buñuel’s follow-up to The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972) continues in the comic vein.

The setting is Paris.  The film proceeds in a stream of consciousness manner without a unifying theme.  We get memorable scenes such as cigar-smoking monks, the peculiar disappearance of a little girl, a sniper and his trial, incest between aunt and nephew and brother and sister, dining room chairs that are toilets, random wild animals, etc. etc.  Food is viewed as shameful while there is much talk of excrement.  The huge cast is a who’s who of European stars of the day.

I enjoyed this but not so well as Buñuel’s prior film where we had basically the same cast throughout and (not) eating as a central theme.  Buñuel of course uses this opportunity to skewer religion, middle-class morality and customs, sex, government officials, etc. etc.

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The Traveler (Mossafer)
Directed by Abbas Kiarostami
Written by Abbas Kiarostami and Hassan Rafi’i
1974/Iran
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

My own thought is that one is very grand, like an emperor on a horse, and it’s very hard for a child to relate to that. In order to be able to cooperate with a child, you have to come down to below their level in order to communicate with them. Actors are also like children. — Abbas Kiarostami

In his second film, Kiarostami shows his talent with working with children.

Qassam is a grade-school student, perhaps about ten years old.  He is always getting in trouble for tardiness, not doing his homework, etc. etc.  The family is poor.  Qassam’s only real passion is soccer (football).  He wants to see his favorite team play live in Tehran.

He needs the money to make the trip and get into the game.  We watch him steal from his parents and try to sell various items he has taken.  Finally, he gets the bright idea of taking pictures of his schoolmates for a small sum each.  Of course, the camera is broken but anything to get to the game.  I will end here.

I liked this movie, especially the photo-taking session, but was not wowed by it.  I’m looking forward to following Kiarostami’s career as the “years” go on.

The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle = Every man for himself and God against all)
Directed by Werner Herzog
Written by Werner Herzog
1974/West Germany
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Kaspar Hauser: It seems to me that my coming into this world was a very hard fall.

Herzog moves back to Germany for this strange story of the life of a “wild child” found on the main square of Nuremberg in 1828.

As the movie begins, we see young man Kaspar Hauser  (Bruno S.) chained up in a filthy dungeon with no companion, just his toy horse, bread and water.  He has apparently been there all his life and has never learned to talk or walk.  One day, out of the blue, a mysterious man frees Kaspar, teaches him one bizarre sentence about wanting to join the cavalry and tries to get him to walk.  He then deposits Kaspar on that square bearing a very strange note and leaves.

The townspeople are not sure what to do with him so he stays in another stable for a while but then he is placed with a family of friendly peasants.  Their young children love to teach him basic vocabulary.  Eventually, the town fathers decide Kaspar has become a burden to the community and put him to work in a circus freak show.

Then a kindly professor takes pity on Kaspar and brings him into his home.  There he  learns even more.  The nobility wants to adopt him as a curiosity but Kaspar isn’t great at controlling his behavior so that doesn’t work out. He also continues to have a strong connection to his dream world.   I’ll end here.

Bruno S. is a stiff amateur actor but somehow I find him really moving.  The story is a melancholy one and poses many interesting questions about the value of “civilization” and human nature. The film is beautiful to look at and listen to.  I like it a lot.

Bruno S. had a life as harrowing as Kaspar’s.  From IMDb: The unwanted son of a prostitute, Bruno S. was beaten so severely by his mother at age 3 that he became temporarily deaf. This led to his placement in a mental institution; he spent the next 23 years in various institutions, often running afoul of the law.  He was also reportedly subjected to Nazi experiments on mentally deficient children.   Despite this past, he became a self-taught painter and musician; while these were his favorite occupations, he was also forced to take jobs in factories. Director Werner Herzog saw him in a documentary  and vowed to work with him, which led to his major roles in this film and Stroszek (1977).

Clip – I thought Kaspar’s solution was great!