Flickers in Time

Minnie and Moskowitz
Directed by John Cassavetes
Written by John Cassavetes
1971/US
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental

Minnie Moore: Seymour likes cars. He’s very happy with cars.

A romantic comedy from John Cassavetes?  Who’d have thought it?  And it’s amusing too!

Minnie Moore (Gena Rowlands) works as a curator at an art museum.  Her relationship with abusive married man Jim (Cassavetes, uncredited) is not satisfying and ultimately falls completely apart.

After Seymour moves to New York for a new start, he gets work as a parking lot attendant.   He is the epitome of a free spirit with a kind heart.  When Seymour encounters the beautiful Minnie by chance,  it’s love at first sight for him.  It’s not as easy for her to get with the program.  With Timothy Cary as a bum.

Well, another comedy to break up all the soul searching in 1971!  And by John Cassavetes no less.  This is another of the “odd couplings” I’ve watched in 71 and like Harold and Maude and Henry and Henrietta, Minnie and Moscowitz were made for each other.  This was done in Cassavetes customary improvisational style and there were times I wished I had sub-titles but it was really worth sticking with.  Recommended.

Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia)
Directed by Luchino Visconti
Written by Luchino Visconti and Nicola Badalucco from the novel by Thomas Mann
1971/Italy
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental

Alfred: You have achieved perfect balance: the man and the artist are one. They have touched bottom together.

Mann’s novel of decay and decadence is turned by Visconti into an operatic travelogue with gorgeous costumes

The setting is early 20th Venice. Aging and ailing composer Gustav von Aschenbach (Dirk Bogarde) has arrived at a beach resort for a sort of rest cure.  It seems not only his illness but also his music could use a good shot in the arm.  Gustav spends much of his time musing (in flashbacks) about his artistic frustrations (his best friend is also his worst critic) and happy times at home with his wife and children.  In appearance, Gustav looks shot all to hell.

Then Gustav spots angelic blonde Polish teenager Tadzio (Björn Andresen) who is vacationing with his mother (Silvana Mangano) and two sisters.  Gustav starts stalking the innocent Tadzio from afar.  He is obsessed with the idea of such perfect beauty existing in a debauched world.  They never exchange anything more than glances.  Eventually, Gustav must leave to fetch his luggage.  When he returns to Venice, everything has changed.

I love Dirk Bogarde.  So you will understand when I say his performance is not worth watching the movie for I need not write much more. Bogarde is fine but nothing special in a story that doesn’t particularly require much from him.  Or maybe it’s just the way the story is told.  It seems to be more of an excuse to hang  beautiful scenery, costumes and settings on.

Bananas
Directed by Woody Allen
Written by Woody Allen and Mickey Rose
1971/US
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Howard Cosell: Sir, you’ve been shot! When did you know it was all over?

Back when Allen was influenced by the Marx Brothers more than Bergman, he made some zany, funny farces like this one.  And it’s funny almost 50 years later.

Nebbish Fielding Melish (Allen) is not exactly setting his profession as an industrial products tester on fire.  One day he meets Nancy (Louise Lasser)  who is collectiong signatures on petitions for radical causes.  Her heros are the rebels against the dictatorship that governs San Marcos, a fictional Latin American country. They date but Nancy finds “something missing”.and eventually dumps Fielding.  Despondent, Fielding heads to San Marcos determined to prove himself to Nancy.

Well, the second half is pretty complicated so let’s just say that Fielding has many misadventures that turn out A-OK.  With Howard Cosell, fantastic as a sports announcer that gives a play by play of the action of certain key scenes of the movie.  If you pay attention you will see Sylvester Stallone, uncreditied, as one of the thugs on the subway.

In an interview with Robert B. Greenfield of Rolling Stone magazine in 1971, Woody Allen said: “They say it’s a political film but I don’t really believe much in politics. Groucho Marx has told me that The Marx Brothers’ films were never consciously anti-establishment or political. It’s always got to be a funny movie first”.

This movie has everything going for it — nothing but fun and foolery – and it is short.  It’s nice to look back at Woody’s beginnings.  Here, he will do anything for a laugh.

A Fistful of Dynamite (AKA “Duck, You Sucker”/Giu la testa)
Directed by Sergio Leone
Written by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone, and Sergio Donati
1971/Italy
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix rental

John H. Mallory: Where there’s revolution there’s confusion, and when there’s confusion, a man who knows what he wants stands a good chance of getting it.

Sergio Leone has done much better than this, his last Western.

The story takes place in turn of the 20th Century Mexico.  Rod Steiger plays Juan Morales, a rough-hewn, low-life bandido with a large family and many hangers-on.  Imagine Tucco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) with less manners and a lot of mugging.  Juan has long had dreams about robbing a bank in Mesa Verde.  John Mallory (Charles Coburn) is a far more sophisticated ex-IRA operative and explosives expert.  When they meet, Juan thinks he has it made and he can force John to help him rob the bank.  Juan is not too smart.

John has no intention of doing anything with his skills and supplies except aid in the Mexican Revolution.  After much wrangling, Juan begins to see things John’s way, necessitating many explosions over the course of the film.

This is an OK Western but doesn’t hold a candle to Leone’s others. First off, Rod Steiger  was apparently told to let it all hang out and that’s always a mistake. He overdoes it painfully here.  Coburn is very good though his accent sort of meanders around Britain and the USA.  It lacks the grandeur of the previous movies and substitutes explosions and lots of lingering close-ups and slow-mo which got on my nerves eventually. Your mileage may vary.

Two English Girls
Directed by Francois Truffaut
Written by Francois Truffaut and Jean Gruault from a novel by Henri-Pierre Roche
1971/France
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Criterion Channel

Claude Roc: I’d rather not be between you, I’d like to be able to look at both of you.

Truffaut looks at a love triangle from the distaff side. It’s pretty but it’s no Jules and Jim (1962).

The film is set in France and Wales at the turn of the last century. Young Frenchman Claude (Jean-Pierre Leaud) is an aspiring writer an a bit of a bon vivant.  He meets Ann (Kika Markham), an attractive and sensitive English woman.  Claude is smitten with Anne immediately.  She invites him to the estate of her mother and younger sister Muriel (Stacey Tendeter) in Wales.  Muriel has an eye condition that troubles her sporadically through the movie.  The three young people have fun together. Anne pushes Claude into the arms of Muriel.  Mother suggests the couple take a year separation and see how they feel about a marriage then.

Claude returns to Paris and within six months is living the high life with multiple mistresses. He breaks off the engagement.  Later Claude runs into Anne who is now an aspiring sculptor. They hook up but what about Muriel? What about Anne?  What about poor Claude?

First, the good and there’s quite a bit of it.  Truffaut and Nestor Almendros create scenes of luminous beauty, the cast is wonderful, and so is the Georges Delerue score.  The story explores religious and sexual attitudes of the period, sisterly love, guilt, and a host of other themes.  But for me it seemed like Jules and Jim, with the two ladies subbing for the gents and Leaud as the object of desire. The film lacks the sheer energy and playfulness that helped to make the earlier love-triangle melodrama a true classic.  I hate it when people can’t make up their minds and kind of torture each other for years.  If you are not an old curmudgeon you might like this film.

The Hellstrom Chronicle
Directed by Walon Green and Ed Spiegel
Written by David Seltzer
1971/US
IMDb page
First viewing/YouTube

Dr. Hellstrom: In fighting the insect we have killed ourselves, polluted our water, poisoned our wildlife, permeated our own flesh with deadly toxins. The insect becomes immune, and we are poisoned. In fighting with superior intellect, we have outsmarted ourselves.

This Oscar-winner is one odd documentary. I’m glad I gave it a try.

The film is narrated by Dr. Hellstrom who interrupts the nature photography every five minutes or so with his commentary. Some of it may be factual but most of it is alarmist pseudo-science used to prove his central thesis which is that insects will outlast man due to their superior adaptability and ability to cooperate.  Once Hellstrom uses a clip of an attacking giant ant from Them! (1954) to illustrate a point.

In between, we are treated to some beautiful shots of many different kinds of insects going about their business. Toward the end of the film the focus shifts to insects who live in colonies such as bees and ants. I learned a lot about termites!

This movie is what it looks like: some super cheesy science-fiction/horror-flavored filler narrated by an actor and intended to make a nature documentary suitable for wide-distribution to theaters. I actually enjoyed it.  The nature documentary and Lilo Schifrin score are pretty fantastic.  The other part appeals to the kid in me.

The Hellstrom Chronicle won the Academy Award for Best Documentary, Feature.

No video available from reviewed film so here’s some giant insect action from Kong: Skull Island (2017).

My Uncle Antoine (Mon oncle Antoine)
Directed by Claude Jutra
Written by Claude Jutra and Clement Perron from Perron’s story
1971/Canada
IMDb page
First viewing/Criterion Channel

Uncle Antoine: It takes a little punk like you to get me in a mess like this.

Beautifully shot film about growing up fast in rural Quebec.

It is Christmas time in rural Quebec sometime in the 1940’s.  It is the busiest season of the year for Uncle Antoine’s general store/mortuary. The store includes living quarters.  Uncle Antoine and Aunt Cecile also house Benoit, the 14-year-old at the center of the tale; shop assistant Fernand (played by Jutra); shop helper Carmen; and woodcutter Jos Poulin and his wife and many children.

Benoit is just at the age to start a flirtation with Carmen.   In other regards, he seems like a wide-eyed kid.  That is until he volunteers to help his uncle the undertaker pick up a body some distance away on a very cold day.  I will stop here.

Unfortunately coming of age is not always a fun-filled frolic but more an abandonment of childhood beliefs.  This is an interesting, often amusing, slice-of-life type movie  I liked it a lot.  The outstanding aspect was the beautiful images that kind of make one nostalgic for a time one never knew.

Fata Morgana
Directed by Werner Herzog
Written by Werner Herzog
1971/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Amazon Prime rental

Perhaps I seek certain utopian things, space for human honour and respect, landscapes not yet offended, planets that do not exist yet, dreamed landscapes.  —  Werner Herzog

If you are going to watch a film in which nothing happens, it might as well be directed by Werner Herzog.

Herzog, his cinematographer Jörg Schmidt-Reitwein and a small crew wandered around the deserts of North Africa for 13 months taking pictures of things that interested them in 1968 and 1969.  Herzog came up with the concept for the film after shooting was completed.  

There is no narration other than a reading of a Mayan creation myth in the first time of the film nor are there any interviews. Mostly it is long takes through desert landscapes. But this is no Lawrence of Arabia desert.   There are shots of oil refineries, dead animals, an other evidence of the long reach of Western civilization.

Herzog has claimed that this is the film’s structure. “The planet Uxmal is discovered by beings from the Andromeda Nebula. They produce a cinematic report in three parts. “The Creation”: a plane lands, primeval landscapes unfold, burning vents and oil tanks come into the picture. “Paradise”: in the grip of nature and the remains of a civilization, people talk about the disaster. “The Golden Age”: a brothel singer and a matron sing. All three parts end with the greatest of all hallucinations, a mirage.” He obviously has a better imagination than I do.

I actually watched this because of the Leonard Cohen soundtrack. While Cohen’s songs “That’s No Way to Say Goodbye” and “Suzanne” are used in a portion of the film, the majority is scored with other (pretty good) music. Can’t recommend this except to completists.